A Life of Hazards
by JadedPhoenixBurning
Summary: This story has been written upon request to follow Kira Duke, my OC from my series, before she made it to Hazzard. You do not need to read the series to read this story. I would like to warn readers that the only Canon Character that will be featured in this story will be Jebb Duke and that will not be right away. Only walk on roles for Bo and Luke later on.
1. Abandoned

**_This story has been written upon request to follow Kira Duke, my OC from my series, before she made it to Hazzard. You do not need to read the series to read this story. I would like to warn readers that the only Canon Character that will be featured in this story will be Jebb Duke and that will not be right away. There will be "guest appearances" of Bo and Luke briefly but only a small walk on role for each of them. _**

**_I'll be honest; this is only marginally fanfiction at all. One canon character has a recurring role in it. If you want to read about the Duke Boys jumping their car and running rough-shod over the Hazzard Police Force, you're in the wrong place. But I wanted to write it anyway - and given that Kira is a recurring OC in my story arc, I figured I'd post it after receiving several requests._**

**_There will be several nods to the show but in general, this is an OC fic. I am pointing this out since I appreciate a little heads up when reading if a story will be a AU fic or one that is primarily one that is an OC fic. This one is both. I had originally started to post this on Fictionpress instead but those that wanted to read this do not go there._**

**_Anyway, this story will take readers along with Kira right up to before the beginning of "Words Spoken in Jest". I hope you enjoy this story._**

Sharon glanced around hoping that no one had seen her as she tugged on the arm of the young girl that she had trailing behind her. She had been nothing but a mistake from the moment that she had decided to steal the young girl from her crib more than four years ago. The girl's fifth birthday was coming up and Sharon, for one, just couldn't muster up the energy of pretending that she was celebrating the day that she had allegedly given birth to the brat anymore. That was why she'd decided that the best thing that she could do was just be done with her once and for all. Oh it's not like Sharon could just take the rug-rat back to the same hospital that she had first gotten her so this one would have to do.

Thinking back to that day, Sharon figured that she should have taken the other one instead. The woman had two babies so she could spare one but obviously taking the girl had been a mistake. Maybe Sharon should have taken the boy instead. Then maybe she wouldn't have ended up with a colicky, needy, child that was never satisfied no matter what was done for her. On top of that, the girl talked to herself. CONSTANTLY talked to herself. But it was never in a way that she could understand. The child's speech was completely indiscernible.

That was all Sharon needed around the house, a kid that was already bonkers. Sharon couldn't deal with her anymore. Not to mention, the girl was getting close to school age. How was she supposed to enroll her without a birth certificate? No, it was time to cut her losses and leave the babbling brat behind.

Walking up the small sidewalk, Sharon watched as the various people milled about as they entered the hospital; a hospital that she COULD have been working at if it weren't for the fact that she hadn't been able to use her license since that day she had the wild and undeniable urge to snatch the child that she was now leading into the waiting room.

Sharon looked toward the nurses with longing. She had once been a wonderful nurse. She'd worked in the Maternity Ward and she'd helped countless babies be born. But then she had lost her own baby when she had only been four months pregnant and she had gotten so angry with the world. Every day that she went to work she saw reminders of what she wouldn't have. Shortly after she'd lost the baby her husband had left and she was left with nothing; nothing at all.

Then it happened. The day came when she saw the woman who had not just one but TWO babies. How could her baby be taken from her but this other woman was given two? No, it hadn't been right. She DESERVED to have a child just as much as that woman had. When she was given the woman as HER patient to tend to while she was in the hospital Sharon felt that it was fate. Fate was giving her a chance to have her child that had been ripped from her.

Sharon had gone to the woman's room and looked at her holding the girl as she waited for the release forms. Sharon had told her that the infants would need to be checked one last time and took the girl while telling the mother that another nurse would be in for the boy shortly. It had been too easy. She had been able to walk right by the guards in the wing since they knew very well that it was her job to transport infants. Then once she had gotten past them it was a simple matter of taking the small I.D. bracelet off and ducking out a side door that the other women used for their smoking breaks.

Of course that day started her life's roller coaster of a ride; constantly looking over her shoulder, wondering if that day would be the day that she would be caught. Changing her name and moving with only what she could pack in her car. At the time it had seemed worth it. Now looking back, Sharon wasn't so sure. Nor was she sure why she had kept the first name for the girl that her mother had given her but Sharon felt that if anyone ever saw her now no one would even DREAM that this would be the same Kira that had been stolen from that small county hospital nearly five years ago.

This evening Sharon had told Kira to wear her best clothes and had gotten the old worn out coat that in a few weeks would be too heavy for the spring weather and wrote out a note and put in her pocket. In the note it had Kira's birth-date (April 19, 1959) and the name that Sharon had given her after she had taken her. She allowed her to keep the name her mother had given her, Kira, but she would be her Duchess.

Once Sharon and the girl were in the waiting area of the emergency room, Sharon turned to the girl and told her that she was going to the bathroom. She also told Kira not to move until she got back. The young girl then climbed up in one of the plastic chairs and sat as Sharon wove her way through the busy waiting room. Taking one last glance, Sharon turned toward the door and walked out of the hospital without Kira.

Kira sat in the waiting room for six hours that night before anyone noticed that she was alone and had been for quite some time. She had been told to stay put and that's exactly what she had done. Even after she started to get hungry, Kira didn't leave her chair. Nor did she try to sneak to the bathroom herself when she started to feel an uncomfortable pressure in her bladder. She just knew that if she went to the bathroom that her mother would be waiting for her and punish her for leaving her seat in the waiting room.

The small girl stayed in her chair still waiting for her mother to return when finally she hadn't been able to hold her bladder any longer; still, she stayed in her seat. It was only after others who were sitting nearby had noticed the girl's soiled clothing and reported her to the front desk and a security guard came over to talk to her, did she move. She was asked to stand up and she did, afraid of what the man would do to her for wetting the seat and herself. But she had done what her mother had told her to do; she hadn't left her seat.

When she was asked where her parents were Kira merely pointed toward the bathroom's general direction. A nurse went to check the bathroom but of course no one was in there. A fruitless search was made of the waiting area but once Kira had been taken to get cleaned up and the note was found in the pocket of her coat it was quite clear that the girl had been abandoned.

Calls were made and a social worker soon showed to take Kira to a group home until a more permanent place could be found for the small child that refused to speak to anyone. It would be weeks before Kira was sent to her first foster mother; a woman that would forever haunt her nightmares.

/

Kira looked around wide-eyed as she climbed out of the car and glanced up toward the large house that she'd been taken to. It had a yard and a few broken toys out front but none of the kids were playing with them. A couple were sitting on the porch cowering in the corner while a couple more were watching Kira from around the corner of the house. In total there were five other kids living in this house, all girls younger than ten.

Hearing the screen door creak, Kira looked up to see a middle-aged woman with a hard face come walking out to greet the social worker. The adults spoke in hushed tones for a few minutes before the woman turned her attention toward Kira.

"Well young lady, do you suppose you could give me your name?"

Kira bit her lip as she realized that the woman was talking to her. She felt scared and she didn't know why. She didn't want to stay here but she didn't have a choice. Momma had gone away. She didn't know why either. She'd been a good girl. She tried to do what she wanted. Still, it hadn't been enough. Now the woman with a cold stare was looking down on her and all she wanted to do was cry.

"She hasn't spoken to anyone else since she was found. Her name is Kira Duchess. Or at least that's the name that we were given when she was abandoned." The social worker pulled out a copy of the small file that had been started on the girl. With only a name that had obviously been faked and a birth date, there hadn't been much to put in the file just yet.

"She doesn't speak?"

"Oh, she speaks alright, just not to anyone else. Only to herself and almost no one can understand her when she does," the worker shook her head as she handed off the file to let Selma Wilson read it. "She's an odd one this girl. I somehow doubt even you will be able to reach her. But if you can, I'm sure that we could find her a more permanent home."

"Well, I don't plan to have my record broken yet. It might take some time but I'm sure I'll have the Duchess here blending in and showing herself to be the model child in no time." Selma reached forward and took Kira's hand as she handed the file back to the social worker. "Come child. I'll show you where you'll be staying."

Kira wanted to pull her hand back but she couldn't. The woman was holding it far too tight. She was then nearly drug inside as the worker left the porch and started toward her car. Panicking, Kira began to holler and scream, she didn't want to be left with this woman. Instead the worker ignored her and started her car up and drove away. The moment that the door to the inside was closed Selma gave a jerk of her hand and brought Kira up short in her hollering.

"That's enough! I'll not allow you to be making that horrible screeching sound!" Kira saw Selma's jaw jut out and her eyes flashed. "Now, I have one rule in this house. I WILL be obeyed. Whether it be out of respect or fear makes no difference to me but I won't tolerate disobedience. Is that understood?"

Kira swallowed hard as she noticed that none of the children that had been out in the yard _PLAYING_ had come inside with her. Right now she was alone with a very scary lady and she just wanted to get away!

"I asked you, is that understood?" Selma reiterated once more with a bit more force. Practically trembling, Kira nodded. "I can't hear the rattling of your head. When I ask you a question I expect an answer." Selma waited once more before sighing in frustration. "Alright, you've come just before dinner; the bathroom is in the hall. Get cleaned up. But I'll warn you, if you leave a mess in the bathroom, YOU'LL be the one expected to clean it up."

Kira backed toward the general direction that Selma had indicated and hurried to get away from her. Once in the hall, Kira opened three doors before finding the one that led to the bathroom. Inside there was an old sink that looked rusty and an equally old looking toilet. Kira used the toilet then turned the water on and was surprised when it came on full blast and sprayed water all over her. Her dress was soaked before she could get the rusty handle to shut off again.

Timidly, Kira walked out of the bathroom and knew the moment that she'd been spotted by the matron of the house. Selma scolded her for the mess and was ordered to take the wet clothes off right there in the hall and true to her word she turned Kira back toward the bathroom and made her dry the floor up before tossing her an over-sized dress to change into that must have belonged to one of the other girls in the house. Kira then followed the rest of the five girls that lived in the house to the sparsely furnished kitchen that was only appointed with one large table with two long wooden benches running the length of the table on either side and it had one cushioned dining room chair at the head of the table. Kira watched as the other girls found their places at the table and waited for Selma to allow them to sit. Of the six places for the children, Kira's place would be next to Selma to the woman's right.

"Well young lady, we're waiting."

Kira swallowed hard before taking her place. When the other girls sat down Kira followed suit and waited as food was dished out and sent around the table then Selma told them to eat their dinner. Kira looked up from her still empty plate with wide eyes toward the woman who had forgotten to give HER anything to eat.

When Selma saw the question in the four year old's eyes she cocked a brow, "Yes. Is there something wrong?" Kira lifted her plate slightly in question. "I can't hear you. If you want something you will need to actually ASK for it. I am not a mind reader and I won't play guessing games."

Kira looked around at the other girls that basically ignored her plight of being hungry but not given any food. She didn't know these people and she wanted to leave. Why would the social worker leave her HERE? She wanted to ask for the food but she knew that she'd always been taught not to speak at the dinner table. Her mother had become angry nearly every time that she heard Kira speak in the months leading up to her abandonment. Was it her speaking that had caused her to go away?

"I'm waiting. If you want food then you will HAVE to ask for it. Otherwise you can just sit there and watch the rest of us."

Kira struggled with herself and mumbled under her breath; much in the same way that she would when she spoke to her imaginary friend, Bo. Still, it didn't seem to be enough since her plate remained empty. The other children quickly ate what they had been given and the moment that Selma released them to leave the table they did so with all the speed that they could.

Once Selma released the last of the other five children in her care she turned to the newly added sixth charge that she'd been given just this afternoon and shook her head. "If you aren't going to eat then you might as well as head upstairs. Elaine will show you where you will sleep tonight."

When Kira looked up in disbelief and appeared frozen in place on the bench, Selma shooed her on. She then began to take up the remaining food from the table and headed out with it and dumped it on the top of her compost pile at the back of the property line. Kira went upstairs as she was told and watched the food being thrown on the pile as her stomach growled.

The next morning, as the other children got ready for school breakfast went much in the same way as supper had the night before though Kira did attempt to ask for her breakfast just a bit earlier. Still, her request was not clear enough for Selma and it was ignored. Kira sat at her place with an empty plate in front of her and again watched as the other girls ate and were summarily dismissed just before the school bus pulled up outside to take them away from the dilapidated large house that Selma owned.

Selma once again took the leftover food out to the compost pile and then instructed Kira to go out and play as she pulled out a glass bottle from a top cabinet in the kitchen and headed over to the couch in the living room. Kira glanced toward the woman as she turned the television on then slipped out of the door as she was instructed to do.

Once outside, Kira sat on porch and put her hands on her growling stomach. She was so hungry she didn't know what she was going to do. She had no interest in playing with the broken down toys that were left in the yard nor did she think that she'd be allowed back inside anytime soon. After a while the young girl noticed some neighborhood dogs over at the compost pile and they were eating the food from this morning and last night that she hadn't been given. She watched as the animals picked through the pile of leftover food as she felt her stomach tighten at the sight of the food scraps being devoured by the dogs.

As the morning faded into the afternoon, Kira waited to be allowed back into the house but each time she tried the doors they were found to be locked. Finally, Kira's bladder let her know that she needed to use the bathroom but it was painfully clear that she wouldn't be able to go inside to do so. When left no other choice, Kira went in behind some of the bushes and lifted her skirt to take care of business. Shortly before the school bus brought the other children home Kira heard the lock to the door click to indicate that it was now unlocked. Kira went inside hoping that perhaps she could get some lunch after having missed two meals but there was nothing on the table.

Once the other girls came back to the house, Kira watched as each handed over test papers and notes from the teachers. When it came Jenna's turn to give her papers to the House Mother, Kira could nearly see the muscles in Jenna's backside clench in anticipation of Selma's reaction to them. Kira watched as the other girls all began to slink off and she joined them just as she heard Jenna begin to cry out in pain. It didn't take much imagination to figure out what was happening to Jenna in the living room.

Kira hid out along with the rest of the girls upstairs until supper. When the girls were all called to the table Kira saw that Jenna was standing at the end of the table instead of sitting in her place from the night before. Kira sat in her spot beside of Selma and once more the plates were passed around without making a stop in front of her place setting. Again, Kira tried her best to speak up for her dinner but it only came out unintelligible to the woman so Selma ignored her.

Selma figured that the girl would talk if she got hungry enough. She just had to be firm with her that was all. When she heard the jabber from the four year old Selma thought that she just might have heard something about wanting some food but she was determined that the girl must speak clearly if she wanted to be given any dinner.

When the meal was over Kira was once more dismissed without having had anything to eat and she was nearly panicking at the thought of spending another night hungry. She watched as the leftovers were taken out to the compost pile and then Selma went into the living room to watch her evening programs.

Kira was then left alone as the other girls went upstairs to start on their homework. Peeking around the corner to see if Selma was paying attention, driven by hunger, Kira snuck out of the kitchen door and headed out to the compost pile and found some of the wasted food that had been tossed on top. It was the first time that she'd eaten in over a day and she didn't care that she only had the food that had been left behind by the dogs that had already picked through the food.


	2. A Cause For Alarm

The next two weeks seemed to drag by impossibly slow for Kira. The other children that lived in the house were a bit older than she and had no interest in playing with her; when they were allowed to play that is. Each child had tasks that they had to complete each day before they could enjoy moments to themselves after they returned to the house from school and completed their homework.

Kira figured that they were lucky since going off to school gave them time away from _'Mama Selma'_. She wasn't so lucky, though she wasn't always in the house while they were at school. Kira was frequently told to go out to play in the yard and once she did she often heard the door lock behind her. She then would remain outside until just before the other children were returned by way of the school bus.

By the time that the door had been opened back up to permit her back in the relative warmth on the cool and rainy spring day, Kira had been soaking wet . Of course, Selma had been more than just a little upset when she began to drip water all over her allegedly clean floor. Kira had been forced to strip out of her wet clothes right there in the kitchen and was thrown a couple of towels to clean her mess up.

"I swear, you make more messes than any child that I've ever seen." Selma shook her head in dismay as she wondered just how she was to train such a child to keep things in order.

/

Kira reached across the large table to try to grab her juice drink. The table was too big to reach the glass without getting up on her knees. Climbing up, Kira took a sip of her drink and went to put the glass back onto the table when SHE hollered at her.

"What do you think you're doing?" Kira flinched as _'Mama Selma'_ chastised her for having such bad table manners. When she jerked, Kira lost her grip on the slippery juice glass and dropped it, sending shards of glass everywhere. "Look at what you've DONE! How many times have I told you not to sit on your knees at the dinner table? Has no one ever taught you decent table manners? You are old enough to know better than that now!"

Selma jerked the young charge up from the table and yanked her behind her as she headed down the hall. Why couldn't the Division of Family and Children Services send her kids that didn't need such a firm hand? But then, she was good at what she did. Maybe that's why they kept sending her these delinquents for her to straighten out. She knew just how to drill discipline into these kids. Opening the door to the basement, Selma pushed the girl into the stairwell.

"If you can't make it through just ONE dinner without making a mess, then you can just stay down there for the night. Only good kids deserve a bed to sleep in."

Kira tumbled down the stairs and felt sick to her stomach when she felt her right arm explode in pain when she landed hard at the bottom of the stairs. Later she'd learn that it was broken, but that was only after it was broken for a second time and was reset after never healing properly from the first break.

She spent all night crying in pain as she clung to her injured arm. Somehow, she'd thought that she would have gotten a toy (a doll perhaps) for her fifth birthday, not a broken arm. That was just the first of many long, dark nights locked away in the basement of _'Mama Selma's'._

_/ (Three years later) /_

Kira sat on the edge of the exam table and brought her hand up to touch the new cast on her right arm. This was second time that she had been given a cast on that arm in the more than three years since she had first been sent to live with Selma. Just outside of the pulled curtain, Kira heard her foster mother and the social worker talking in hushed tones.

Kira had been surprised that the woman had made it to the hospital before she was release. Normally she didn't show up until days after a trip to the hospital due to an ACCIDENT. For Ms. Roe to actually make it to the hospital while Kira was still being seen was unheard of. Now Kira leaned toward the two that were just a few feet away and listened as the two women spoke on the other side of the curtain.

"Selma, I've told you before. We can't keep having these kinds of accidents."

"It's not like I had anything to do with them, Connie. You know that. That girl has been a problem since the very first day that she was brought to me."

Kira furled her brow as she rolled her eyes. Oh yes, all of the trips to the hospital were HER fault. She had lost count of all of the trips to the emergency room or even the times when she SHOULD have gone to the hospital but didn't as well.

"I know. But I have to tell you that people are starting to get curious. If she ends up in here again my bosses are going to start nosing around. If that happens we both could have a lot of hard questions to answer."

Kira couldn't hear Selma's response but just hearing the social worker and the urgency in her voice, Kira's mind began to mull over just what that could mean for her. Perhaps she now had a means to get away from Selma and her strict _Discipline_.

When the doctor finally released Kira while giving Selma instructions on how to care for the injury, Kira made a promise to herself that this would be the last time that she would be sent back to that house after an injury. She didn't care what she had to do. Even if she was to run past the security officers themselves here at the hospital to do it.

/

Kira awkwardly grabbed her pencil and did her best to try to do her homework with the wrong hand now that her right arm was in a cast. Her writing looked like a mess and was illegible but she knew from experience that there would be no excuses for not getting her homework done. Neither Selma nor her teacher at school would accept any of them. Kira was just glad that school work came so easy for her. At the moment, doing the math figures in her head was a lot simpler than getting it down on paper. Once the math was completed Kira would then be able to work on her favorite subject, history.

Across from her at the table, a younger girl sat writing out her spelling words as yet another girl studied for a geography quiz that would be given the next day. None of the girls had spoken in more than two hours since they each knew the price of talking during _Study Time_. A reminder of that cost had come when the youngest of the house had forgotten the rule of no talking and had started to giggle about her day at school shortly after the girls had all sat down to begin their homework. Selma had immediately jerked the first grader up and took her off to the basement and had yet to return. Kira knew that she likely would still be down there through dinner and possibly until the morning. More than likely she would be sporting new bruises as well.

Kira listened to the sounds that were coming from the lower floor and gritted her teeth. With tomorrow being Friday, Jamie likely would end up staying home from school which would give the bruises a whole weekend to fade before the girl would return back to school. Selma would tell the school that Jamie was sick and her work would be sent home with the rest of the girls for her to do over the weekend and if the teachers ever suspected the real reason for the girl's absence no one would ever say anything.

That was one thing that Kira couldn't understand. If others knew what was going on here in this house then why didn't anyone ever do anything about it? Shouldn't someone say SOMETHING? Here there were six of them all living in a house with a woman whose idea of discipline were tantamount to torture and anyone that knew the girls just turned a blind eye to each and every injury that was sported after the slightest infraction of the rules.

As _Study Time_ came to an end, Selma returned to the room and began to scan over the work that had been done by the young students. When she stopped behind Lottie, each of the girls stiffened as they waited to learn just what had caused Selma to pause.

"Lottie, tell me. How many regions is the United States divided up into?"

Lottie swallowed hard as she bit her lip. She had eight on her paper but by Selma's reaction, that must be wrong. She racked her brain and tried to see which one she'd missed.

"Um... Nine, maybe?"

"Nine? List them." Selma crossed her arms and glared down at the fourth grade girl.

"Uh...um...Pacific Coast... Atlantic... South... Southeast... Mountains... Midwest... New England... and...West?"

"WRONG!" Selma bellowed as she reached down to pull the girl up on her feet. "The correct answer would be TEN! Pacific Coast, Mountain, Southwest, Heartland, Midwest, Appalachian, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, New England and Noncontiguous."

"I'm sorry!" Lottie squealed as she pulled on her arm knowing that it wouldn't help. "I'll remember them; I promise!"

"Yes you will, after I've drilled them into you! Now time to go downstairs!"

Selma turned toward the basement door with Lottie in tow and casually reached out to grab the wooden paddle that she kept on the peg near the door that was just out of reach of the children. It had several holes drilled into it, as well as some small ball bearings glued throughout the paddle to make the tool a more effective device in disciplining her charges. The whole time, Lottie pled her case as tears streamed down her face.

When Kira saw the paddle removed from its hook, something inside her just snapped. With her good hand tightened in a fist, she quickly stood, causing the bench behind her to tip over. Kira then ran over pushed Selma against the wall as hard as she could.

Selma cried out in surprise and released Lottie as she turned to glare at Kira for her impertinence. "How dare you?!"

Selma revved back with the paddle and struck the eight year old. Kira had brought her already injured, casted, arm to protect her face and was sent backwards onto the floor from the impact. Her head bounced hard on the kitchen floor causing her ears to ring and her vision to turn red. Kira turned to her side and braced for what she knew from experience would come next. Once Selma lashed out she rarely quit before she was tired out.

Meanwhile, the other girls all ran out of the house as they tried to put as much distance between themselves and the angry woman. Lottie eventually found a neighbor and asked for help which led to calls both to the police and the hospital. Within a week, all six girls were removed from _Momma Selma's_ and were sent to new homes. Some were better than living with Selma, others were not.

Kira was sent to a home of a nice couple who both loved children and for the first time in her life, she no longer lived her life in fear. Unfortunately, it would not be a permanent home. The couple moved out of state only five months after she had been placed with them which sent her back into the system. Luck with her next foster home was not on her side. Three months after being placed in her new home, Kira ran away for the first time and prayed that she could survive in the more relative safety of the streets before she was even ten years old.


	3. Street Trash

**Warning! The first part of this chapter may be uncomfortable and offensive to read to some readers. Reader's discretion is advised.**

**/**

It had been more than three weeks since Kira had left her latest foster care home. The moment that she had first been dropped off at the home of Ken Morgan and his wife June, she knew that she wouldn't be staying long. There was something that she had seen in Ken's eyes that she hadn't liked. Like Mama Selma's home, he and his wife only took in girls. Unlike the woman, though, Ken seemed to go out of his way to be _helpful_ to his charges and was always within arm's reach of one girl or another.

After years of living with Selma, Kira was untrusting of adults in general and did her best to keep her distance. She hadn't been able to do that for long, however. Ken had been a very touchy-feely kind of guy and he would walk up to each of the children and hug them at odd moments for no reason at all. He would also pull each of the three children that lived in the house into his lap from time to time as he joked and teased the girls.

Unlike at Selma's house, however, each of the girls not only had their own beds, but their own rooms as well. Kira knew that she should have been happy to have her newfound privacy. In addition, the house and yard were both full of toys and various playthings for the girls to keep themselves occupied. Maybe she was as ungrateful as Selma would often accuse her being since she didn't feel any gratitude at all.

On Kira's second night in the Morgans' home, she woke up to go to the bathroom and ran into Ken coming out of Molly's room carrying some soiled sheets. He's claimed that the other girl had wet the bed but she was older than Kira. She found it odd that the older girl would not have woken up to use the bathroom. Molly never spoke of it afterwards so Kira figured that she was embarrassed about the whole incident. That would not be the only time that Kira was aware of the foster father leaving the girl's room in the middle of the night after changing the bed.

Within a couple of weeks of being placed with the Morgans, Kira soon realized that Ken had begun to single her out more and more during the _family times_ and would often ask her to join him on his errand runs as well. Then it happened. Molly and Sally were invited to stay with friends for the weekend and June left out with them to drive each of them to the two friends' homes. That left Kira alone with Ken.

When the others left, Kira had already been coerced into playing a game of UNO with Ken and she actually was doing well in the game. Moments after his wife and the other children had left, Ken suggested that the winner of the next game should get a hug as a prize. When he gave it, Kira felt awkward but accepted it and waited for him finish and take his seat once again.

Throughout the next game, Ken seemed to be watching Kira differently and it made her uncomfortable. In the end, she lost the game and had forced herself to stand and walk over to give the now obligatory hug for losing the game. Once again, Ken held onto her for longer than she was comfortable with but felt helpless to do anything other than just endure the embrace until it was time to start the next game. That game Kira had been the winner but she didn't really feel like celebrating. Ken insisted on giving her prize and had stood to join her on her side of the small kitchen table. That time, Ken had stretch the hug out even further.

When Kira felt sure that Ken would pull back, he'd surprised her and leaned down and gave her a kiss directly on the mouth. Shocked and more than a bit scared, Kira was frozen in her chair. Not able to get up or move away from the man. She had then felt his hands where she knew they didn't belong and hadn't been able to stop him from doing other things that she didn't want him to do.

Afterwards, Ken had said that he was sorry and begged for Kira to forgive him. He just hadn't been able to help himself. What was she supposed to say to that? That night after June had fallen asleep, Kira received a night time visit from Ken and soon learned the reason why Molly's sheets tended to be changed in the middle of the night. When he left for work the next day, Kira remained huddled in her room for most of the time that he was gone wondering what she had done to cause the man to give her the kind of attention that he's shown her the night before. There had been one thing that she knew, though. She didn't want to spend another night in the same house as him.

After June gave Kira her lunch, she glanced at the clock and knew that with each passing minute, she was another minute closer to when Ken would return home. Kira had gotten up from the lunch table and walked outside, much the same way she would have when she went out to play, and started walking out of the small housing development and didn't look back.

Thinking back now, Kira wondered how she had managed to make it past that first night outside on her own. Fortunately, the warm summer nights had made sleeping in the small cluster of trees that she had found that first night bearable. Once she had survived her first night on the road, Kira was then faced with the need to find something to eat. She had made it two nights in the woods, slowly walking as far from the house that she had left behind as she could, before she had become so hungry that she actually started to eat the leaves of various trees that she passed by. Some were bitter and others made her sick but she soon learned which ones she should avoid to prevent herself from throwing up.

On Kira's second day of walking, she found a highway that was lined with trees and she followed it while staying in the shade of the tree lining. She watched as cars passed by and would often imagine where they were going. To kill time as she walked, she conjured up her longtime companion that only she could talk to.

When she had stayed with a couple in Glenwood, they had put her in therapy and the psychologist had tried to convince her that Bo was just part of her imagination. She had created him long before she had even entered into the foster care agency so that she would have someone to love her. Kira figured that he might have been right but did it really matter? When she needed to talk to someone Bo was always there for her. Though she had wondered why, if as the therapist had said was correct, she had created such an odd mix of a family through him. Why create a family where everyone was cousins or Aunts and Uncles, not a regular family with parents and siblings? In therapy, she'd been told that it was a symbol of feeling that she wasn't worthy of being a part of a whole family. Even in her ideal family, she had set herself apart from those that could possibly care for her.

During her time walking along the road, she enjoyed listening to stories of spending time with a family that she wished that she was a part of while trying to forget what had happened back at the house. Still, it had helped to tell someone about it, even if that someone wasn't real. Keeping up a steady stream of imaginary conversation had helped time to pass as she would wander aimlessly.

Finally, after spending the last couple weeks walking along the highway and trying to stay hidden among the trees when they were around, Kira had made it to the city three nights ago. Which city she didn't know and she really didn't care. The first night, she had stayed on the outer edge of the city limits where there were still a few trees that offered somewhere for her to hide. Still, Kira knew that she couldn't stay in the small outcropping of trees for long. So she ventured into the city and began to wander the streets looking for some place to find some food other than the leaves that she'd been living on for the last couple of weeks.

That was when she had come across other kids, some older than her but not all of them, going through the large dumpsters that could be found behind stores and restaurants. They were other kids just like her. They had left their homes for various reasons and were surviving on their own. There were a few older kids there that had actually grown up on the streets, having never lived indoors at all, who seemed to be the leaders of the small group of children that had formed their own family right out on the streets. After watching the others for a couple of days Kira had finally worked up the courage to approach the cluster of children.

A couple of the kids asked her how long she had been on the streets and only asked once why she had left the foster family that she'd been placed with. When Kira looked away in shame at the question, the others pulled back and had agreed to let her join their group. The street family lived under a bridge that overlooked a small creek which gave them drinking water, though she was warned that from time the others would get sick after drinking from it. After spending so many days of only being able to find water in nearly dry mud puddles Kira was willing to risk an upset stomach. After she had her fill of the dirty creek water, Kira sat on the bank and watched as some of the other children, mainly girls, dug in their bags that they carried with them and changed into clothes that seemed to barely fit them. Curious, Kira asked one of the other girls, Denise, what they were doing.

Denise adjusted the knot of her shirt that she'd used to close her blouse that had lost most of its buttons months ago on her still flat chest and grabbed her small purse that she used to keep her money in. "Most of us are heading out to work for the night."

"Work?"

The slightly older girl put her hands on her hips and eyed the newbie in the group. "I know that you are new at all of this but I think that you should know that we all have to pull our own weight. We all do what we can to bring in some money for food or other stuff that we need too. Most of us figured out that we can get easier money by spending time with the men that drive up and down the street. We let them do what they want and they usually pay us afterwards. It's easier than trying to swipe wallets or grabbing bags." Denise pulled out a ratty old hair brush as she spoke that was missing most of its bristles and gave her hair a quick pass through. "Besides, it's nothing that my mom's boyfriend didn't do. At least now I get money for it."

Kira's mouth dropped as she realized what Denise was talking about. Here she'd left the Morgans' home because Ken wanted to _SPEND TIME _with her and Denise was about to go out and let strangers do the same thing just for money. An involuntary shiver ran through her as she thought of the possibility of having some other man do what Ken had. Kira watched as Denise and the other children headed off toward the road's edge as she promised herself that she wouldn't ever do what the older girl was about to do. When Kira watched a sedan pull up and Denise hop in, she made up her mind that she'd find something else to do to stay with the group instead.

/

Kira looked up at the street sign and tried to remember if she was supposed to turn now to head back to the bridge or if she was supposed to go down to the next street instead. She'd wandered deeper into the city with some of the others when they went dumpster diving for food but had gotten separated when they had all scattered after someone spotted a patrol car nearby. Now Kira was lost and had no clue how to get back to the bridge.

The sun had gone down quite some time ago which had made finding her way through the city more difficult. Kira still had a hard time finding her way around during the day. At night, everything looked totally different. Completely turned around, Kira had the bad feeling that she wouldn't make it back to the bridge tonight. Instead, she wondered just where she could hide for the night since she had already begun to spot more patrol cars scanning the alley ways for vagrants and street kids. Every time she found living on the streets hard, Kira reminded herself of the fact that if she was caught the foster care agency would send her right back to Ken Morgan or someone just like him. That always gave her an extra boost when she needed it to stay ahead of anyone looking to take kids like her back off of the streets.

Off to the side, Kira spotted an alleyway but it already had quite a few adults gathered in it so Kira decided to keep looking for another place to hide for the night. She had walked for what felt like forever and had stopped paying close attention to the cars passing by on the road. After seeing Denise and some of the others leave out on a nightly basis, Kira didn't really want to think too hard on just what type of people were driving those cars. Kira wanted to just get somewhere away from those cars and away from the men that drove them up and down the streets lined with women, girls, men and boys that were looking for ways to get what many considered to be easy money.

Not watching the cars on the road turned out to be a mistake. As Kira was about to cross yet another street while still racking her brain for any indication that she'd been here before, a quick blip on a siren sounded as a patrol car pulled over just beside of her. Kira looked up and swallowed hard as she looked around helplessly knowing that she had no way of explaining just why she was on the streets after dark or where her parents were when the police officers decided to call them to pick her up at the station. Kira just knew that she'd be back at the Morgans' home again before sunrise.

"Hey kid, don't ya know that it ain't safe to be out on the streets so late?" One of the two officers inside the car had rolled his window down while the other one eyed her suspiciously. "Why don't you hop on in and we'll take you home."

Kira couldn't find her voice. Every kid on the street had their planned story to tell any cop that might stop them to avoid being taken in but at the moment she couldn't remember hers. She opened her mouth to respond but quickly closed it again when she realized that she hadn't a clue just what to say to them.

"That won't be necessary, Officer," the familiar voice of one of the other street kids that she'd been staying with came from off to the side. Jason was older, nearly seventeen and only stayed with the younger kids since he had a brother just a little older than Kira. Otherwise, Jason would have moved on to another street family long ago. But having Kenny to take care of, Jason stayed with the small group of kids that slept under the bridge near the edge of town. "We just live up the block from here. Ain't that right, Annie? We've been worried about you. Did you get lost coming home from Cindy's?"

Kira gave a genuine smile as she knew that she was saved from the fate of being sent back to the foster family that she'd ran away from only weeks prior. Jason was giving her a bouncing off point for jumping off when it came to having an excuse for being out alone in the city and he also was able to remind her of rule number one when it came to being confronted with a cop around other street kids. Never, ever, use real names in front of them; just in case they get nosy and try to check out the names later on.

"Sorry, Derek. I guess I wasn't payin' attention. I'm glad that you came looking for me." Kira turned to the patrol car and gave the polite wave that she knew that they'd be expecting before saying, "Thanks for the help anyway, Officers."

"You kids sure you don't need a ride anywhere?" the driver asked as Kira ran over toward her _brother _and away from the cop car at the same time.

"Nah. Like I said, we just live up the block. Thanks anyway." Jason took Kira's hand like he often did with Kenny's and started to walk down the street as he asked her why she was so far from the bridge this late at night. She explained that she'd gotten separated from the others earlier in the evening.

Jason looked around and knew that he wouldn't have time to take Kira to the relative safety of the bridge before he had to be where he was going so he decided that she'd just have to tag along for the night. When the two got near a park, Jason led the young girl that he had in tow over toward to a large dumpster that was nearly full. He then lifted her up and told her to stay hidden inside until he returned later on. He then walked further into the park but never left Kira's sight as he approached a group of both kids and adults that ranged in ages from younger than Kira to old men that looked as if the hunches on their backs made it difficult to walk.

After a brief few moments, Kira soon realized why Jason frequently sported black-eyes or other injuries from time to time. Each of those that were gathered appeared to be there for two reasons. Some of them were there to fight; others were there to bet on the outcomes of the fights. What she didn't know was that anyone that showed had to be willing to fight, even if no opponent was found for the individual that night. That had been why Jason had left her in the dumpster instead of letting her follow him closer to the cluster of fighters and gamblers.

From her place among the trash, Kira watched as Jason squared off with another teen about his age. Jason and the other boy exchanged punches and jabs along with some kicks. By the end of the fight, Jason was limping and favoring his right arm. Still, he'd fared better than the other boy. After collecting his winnings, Jason headed back toward where he'd left the newbie to the street family so the two of them could head back to their concrete home.

After climbing out of the dumpster, Kira walked alongside her lifeline back to the now familiar night haunt. She wanted to ask Jason why he'd allowed others to bet on him fighting but she figured that she likely would get a similar answer that she'd gotten from Denise about why she does what she does every night. After all, Jason didn't have to find a way to feed and clothe just himself. Jason also had his little brother to worry about. While she was still thinking about that, Jason finally spoke up and pulled her out of her thoughts.

"Whatever you do, don't ever come back here unless you are willing to fight. You understand?"

Kira nodded and bit her lip as she wondered if she'd ever be back. After all, it would be better to do what Jason did tonight to get a little cash than it was to follow Denise's lead. Wouldn't it?

**/**

**Author's Note:**

**One out of every 45 children in the United States is homeless, according to a report released by the National Center on Family Homelessness. The majority of the children are under age of seven. As of August of 2011, the average age of a homeless person in the United States is nine, and there are many kids below the age of nine on the streets, some with their families but most trying to survive on their own. Currently there are 1.6 million homeless and runaway street kids in the United States, not counting children who were forced out of their homes, abandoned by the foster care system, or are part of a homeless family. **

**Most runaway children do not realize the dangers of living on the streets. According to the National Runaway Switchboard, 75% of runaways will become involved in theft, drugs or pornography. One out of every three teens on the street will be lured into prostitution within 48 hours of leaving home. Daily in the US, an average of thirteen children die on the streets. In addition to the necessity of finding food, homeless teens and children face constant police hassling and the threat of physical and sexual assault. One study found that 60% of youth on the streets have been raped or assaulted. Homeless youth must face all the difficulties homeless adults do, but are more helpless and lacking in maturity.**

**In my story, I have Kira beginning her life on the streets at the age of nine years old in the summer of 1968. While this is fiction, this is the plight of many children in the USA.**


	4. Stealing to survive

Kira watched Jason work with Kenny trying to get him ready for the next fight. Kenny had insisted that he was ready to join in street fighting like his older brother so Jason had reluctantly agreed to help him prepare. Kira was surprised to see that Jason was so rough with his little brother whom he always seemed to fret over all of the time. By the end of the impromptu training session Kenny looked as if he was sore all over and had several bruises marking his skin.

Kira subconsciously rubbed her own arm as she remembered the pain that she felt every time that Selma became upset at her, the other girls, or had become upset at life in general. After leaving Selma's, she had only stayed in Glenwood with the couple that lived there for five months before being sent to live with the Morgans. Kira had stayed there less than a month before she had run away. Now about eight months after leaving the woman behind in her first foster home, the bruises were gone, the broken bones healed, but the pain was still very vivid in her mind. Still, a part of her began wonder if she would be willing to endure that kind of pain again just to eat.

Kira put her hands on her stomach to stifle the growling that spoke of the fact that when she and the other kids had gone dumpster diving this morning that the edible food had already been picked clean by the older kids and adults that had hit it beforehand. She and the other kids were always the last to search the trash put out by the local restaurants and stores. The younger you were, the less was offered to you out here in the streets.

When Kira had first joined the street family, she had been able to at least quell the pangs by chewing on leaves from some of the plants that grew at the edge of town. With the leaves changing colors and beginning to fall, however, that alternative to food from the trash was no longer an option. She now knew that she needed to find some way to get some money so that she could buy her a meal or two in between her dives in the dumpsters. Otherwise she just might end up like Denise and the other girls in the street family just to so she could survive.

Now that Jason and Kenny were finished sparing, Kira saw that Jason began to look over the injuries that his younger brother had undoubtably sustained during the training session. She could hear the older brother reminding the younger that in one of the street fights, his opponent wouldn't go easy on him. He'd have to make sure that he didn't show that he was hurt while in front of the other fighters. He should always wait until after he was back at the bridge before he began to nurse his wounds.

Kira locked away the advice in the back of her mind just in case she needed it later on. She then turned and saw that one of the older girls (she looked like she was about thirteen) was watching her. She then walked over to Kira with a smile and sat down on the ground off to the side and motioned for Kira to join her. She then pulled out a couple apples that she had been hiding in her backpack that she took with her everywhere and offered Kira one.

"You don't want to try fighting for food, Kid. Most of the other kids are a lot bigger than you and you wouldn't stand a chance." The girl took a bite of her apple and chewed it as she continued, "And some of those that fight love breaking in the newbies."

"I wasn't planning to fight," Kira insisted despite her thoughts only moments earlier as she accepted the apple and took a bite out of it as well. It had been a long time since she'd had anything like a fresh piece of fruit; so long in fact that she had forgotten how good an apple could taste.

"Right." The girl snickered. "I'm Gina."

Looking sideways at the girl sitting beside of her, "Kira. Where did you find apples?"

"I swiped them from the store earlier today." Gina shrugged since to her it was the only obvious answer.

"You mean that you stole them?"

"It's not like there weren't plenty of other apples that they could sell. Besides, the guy never even missed them."

"Oh." Uncomfortable with the knowledge that the food was stolen, Kira didn't know what to say. Not knowing when she'd be able to enjoy something as delicious as an apple again, Kira didn't' bother eating around the core. Instead she did her best to eat the whole thing, leaving only the stem and the very center of the core behind once she was done. After the two finished eating, Kira muttered a thanks.

Gina munched on her apple and studied the younger girl. "This is all still really new to you ain't it?" Kira nodded. "Listen, living on the streets is different than living anywhere else. Things that seem wrong just might be the only way to survive. If you plan to stay out here, you're goin' to have to learn to do what you have to, to stay alive."

"You mean steal?"

"To start off with." Gina cocked her head as she tried to figure if this kid would be one that had what it took to survive out on the streets or if she'd run back home to mommy or daddy after she got tired of trying to stay out on her own. In her years on her own, she'd seen a lot of kids that had gotten mad at their parents and thought that running way would teach them a lesson. Kira didn't seem to fit into that category. Gina had seen Kira panic the last time that a patrol car had driven by. She didn't plan to go back to wherever she'd come from which meant that she would need to know how to survive on her own. "The rest, you can learn as you go. Speaking of which, if you want, you can come with me tomorrow when I head out. I'll show you how to get some breakfast before the dumpsters start to get cleaned out."

Kira looked down at what was left of her apple and wished that she had another one. The other kids had been nice enough to let her stay with them but Gina had been the first to share any food with her in the weeks since she'd first begun to sleep under the bridge. Now, not only had Gina shared her fruit, but now she was willing to take Kira under her wing and show her the ins and outs of living on the streets.

"I'd like that," Kira finally said with a smile.

"Good, then we'll leave out in the morning while the others are still sleeping." Gina stood up and returned Kira's smile. In her mind's eye, she was already coming up with ways to put her new friend to work.

/

Kira wandered through the newly opened mall as if looking for someone; quickly ducking into a couple of stores before she finally collided with a middle-aged woman that was loaded down with packages along with a large and heavy purse. When Kira bumped her, the woman's bags went flying to the ground in different directions and created a complete mess in the walkway in front of the small store that she'd just come out of. Kira then dropped to the ground as if she'd fallen when she ran into the lady and began to whimper about being lost and wanting to find her mother.

"Calm down, Child. I'll help you find her." The older woman began to try to comfort the seemingly distraught young girl as she went on to tell of how she had been shopping with her mother and had stopped to look in a store window only to look up to find her mother missing.

While the woman was distracted by Kira, an older child had snuck up behind the woman and opened the large purse and pulled out the woman's wallet. Grabbing the bills inside, the child then put the wallet back into the bag and slunk off before being noticed by the older woman or any of the other shoppers around.

Once Kira saw that Gina was clear, she then began to try to help the woman gather her scattered bags while sniffling and giving a general description of her _Mother_. With the bags all collected, Kira and the woman headed off toward the food court where Kira perked up and shouted that she saw her mother and thanked the woman before running headlong toward the crowd in the eatery area.

Feeling as if she'd done a good deed, the woman then turned with a smile on her face and continued with her shopping. She never realized that she'd been mugged.

After leaving the hapless mark, Kira looped around and headed back to the small nook that she knew that Gina would be waiting for her. They had done this routine several times, though rarely in the same place, and they had it down pat now. Kira was good at keeping adults occupied while the more experienced girl swiped the money that they'd need for the day's meal. Only after they both had full stomachs would they head back to the bridge for the night. Now that a larger building with several stores all in it instead of having to work in the open street had come to town, it would make working come the winter time a lot easier. Kira was just glad that the mall had been built in the same city that she and Gina lived in. Malls were rare and far between so Kira knew that they were lucky. They kept just how much they'd really made each day a secret because they were trying to save up for coats for the winter. It was getting cool at night and Gina said that if they didn't want to freeze as it got closer to winter, they would need to actually buy their coats since it would be hard to walk off with the really good coats like they could when they needed a new shirt or pair of pants.

Gina had lived on the streets all of her life. Her parents had been homeless when she was born but Kira never did find out what happened to the girl's parents. She had shown Kira how to hide an outfit among a bunch of other clothes that she would try on in a dressing room. She would then put the extra outfit on under her clothes that she'd gone into a store wearing and hand the rest of the clothes back to the clerk that managed the changing areas claiming that they didn't fit. The clerks were never the wiser; especially if they did end up buying a small item in the store before leaving out. After all, shoplifters didn't actually pay for anything, did they?

Gina also showed Kira how to swipe a new pair of shoes by putting her old shoes in the same box and continue to try on other shoes even after they had replaced their own shoes to make it look more authentic that they just hadn't found any shoes that they had been happy with. Other kids tended to grab and run and that drew attention to themselves. Gina's method lulled the sales staff into complacency. They always would do so during the busiest time of the day and would look down at their watches when they were ready to leave and shout out that they were late and their mom or dad would kill them for keeping them waiting. They appeared to be normal girls that were out loafing around the mall while waiting for their parents to finish shopping.

After Kira and Gina finished for the day, the two girls got ready to leave the mall then head back to the bridge for the night. They were nearing the exit when the woman from earlier whose money they'd swiped came shouting at them with a sales clerk in tow. When she had gotten to the next store, and found that all of her cash was missing, that was when she realized that the only time that she could have had her money stolen was when she'd stopped to help the young girl that had bumped into her and sent her bags flying.

"Uh-oh. RUN!" Gina gave Kira a light shove in the opposite direction as she headed off at as fast as she could. This wouldn't be the first time that they'd been spotted and each time they'd split up to ditch the pursuing adults and meet back up together several blocks away from whatever store they had been chased from.

Kira stumbled over her own feet briefly before turning to run as well. She ran headlong into a group of shoppers hoping to get to the next exit before the woman and sales clerk behind her caught up to her. She ducked and shimmied between shoppers and could tell by the shouts behind her that she was out running them. Kira grinned to herself when she spotted the door to the outside. That smile was short-lived, however, as another clerk shot out of the next store front and snatched her up off of her feet; effectively ending her race to freedom.

"Let me go!" Kira kicked her legs and squirmed as best as she could to loosen the hold the man had on her before the others caught up to her. Unfortunately, Kira wasn't able to pry herself free from the clerk's grip. That was when she knew that by the end of the day, she was heading back to foster care system. Possibly even back to the Morgans'.

"Not a chance, Brat." The sales clerk gave a grunt as Kira's knee connected with his thigh as he held her up in the air off of her feet. "The only place it looks like you'll be going is in the back of a police car."

Kira swallowed hard when she realized that the woman whose money she and Gina had taken had finally caught up to her.

"Alright, young lady. Where is it? I want my money."

"I don't have any money!" And it was true. She and Gina hadn't split the money up yet when the woman had hollered at them.

"Now I know that just isn't true." The middle-aged woman said as she put her hands on her hips. I had forty dollars in my wallet when I left the shoe store and when I got to the dress shop I didn't have any of it. You are the only one that so much as bumped me in between those two stores!"

"Why don't we take this to the security office so we don't attract any more attention," the first sales clerk who had ran with the older woman in pursuit of the pickpocketer said as he looked around at the other shoppers that were stopping and watching what was going on. "Once we get in there, we can call the authorities and maybe get some answers."

/

Kira looked around at the room full of cots and sighed. She had just been brought in to stay at the orphanage until a new foster family could be found for her after she'd been picked up at the police station earlier that day. At least she wasn't heading back to the Morgans. She had refused to tell the social worker her last name so she had no way of knowing if she was already in the system or not. Instead, she was being processed as if she'd never been in foster care before now.

Kira held out hope that her new home would be better than living with Ken or Selma. If it wasn't, at least she now knew that she could take care of herself, though a part of her was glad that she wouldn't be sleeping under the bridge tonight with the cold rain pouring down.


	5. On the Run

Kira watched as a couple sat out in the backyard of the orphanage with Annie. She was about the same age as Kira but that was about where the similarities ended. Annie had entered the system only about a year prior after her parents died in a car crash and there had been no family members able to take her in. She was always so cheerful that Kira couldn't stand her. That cheerfulness, however, was likely why the couple that was sitting at the table outback was interested in adopting the girl.

The director had tried to convince Kira to mimic Annie's attitude whenever strangers came to visit the orphanage but Kira had no desire to attract any attention from any of the childless couples that came in either to make themselves feel good about doing a good deed by spending time with the children who had no one else or by those who came around in hopes of finding a child to take home with them. Instead, Kira had developed the habit to speak only when she found that it was absolutely necessary to get people to leave her alone with her books.

They were the only bright spots that Kira found when she was living in the orphanages or foster homes. She loved going to school and she even enjoyed listening to some of her teachers as they gave their lessons. Kira's time on the streets might have put her behind in actually being able to sit in class and do the required work for each grade level but when she was in school she soaked up the information given to her like a sponge.

A year ago, one of her teachers, Miss Helen Hutchins, had even offered to tutor her to get her caught up fully with her class work. Kira had been living in a group home at the time with foster parents that really hadn't seen the need in the tutoring though. Kira was doing just fine as she was. In fact, she was making better grades than their other charges. Still, the teacher had insisted that with the proper tutelage, Kira could possibly even begin the next school year a whole grade ahead of the other children her own age. Reluctantly, the eleven year old girl had been given permission to stay after school for extra lessons.

At times, Kira was sure that she must have annoyed Miss Hutchins (sometimes she had tried to do so on purpose) but the teacher had been very patient with her anyway. Even when Kira had pointed out that one of the special spelling words that she'd been given to learn since she was so far ahead of her classmates was spelled wrong. Onomatopoeia; her teacher had spelled it onomatopeia.

When Kira had pointed out the mistake the teacher had gone over to the dictionary and looked up at child with disbelief and had simply said, "You're right. How'd you know that!?"

Kira had overheard that Helen Hutchins had actually discussed the possibility of adopting Kira at one point but since she was a single woman with limited means, she hadn't been considered to be a viable placement for her. When Kira had come across a letter from the department that handled adoptions of foster children in the state on Miss Hutchins's desk, she had become so upset at the knowledge that she was being denied the chance to leave the system like the other kids that she'd seen being adopted or sent to some of the good foster homes. When the school year ended, Helen made Kira promise that she would keep up with her studies and had never seen her again.

Within two weeks of the end of the school year, Kira had run back to the streets. Things made more sense to her out there. Unfortunately, she'd only made it about three months before a social worker had the police raid an old abandoned house that several street kids had taken over. That had sent Kira right back to the orphanages again. So now Kira was scowling out the window as the girl that she couldn't stand charmed her way into a new home. Kira turned from the window and pulled out the books that she'd swiped from the library and figured that getting lost in her books and stories was much more preferable than watching Annie with her new family out in the yard. At least Kira could expect to be rid of the obnoxiously cheerful girl for good within a couple of weeks. That was something at least.

Kira opened the large tome and began reading of a long gone civilization as she began to tune out those around her; particularly a certain bubbly girl who had come running in excitedly after the couple left for the day. While Annie chattered on about her potential move out date, Kira was immersed in reading of ancient Indian tribes that had once roamed freely across the land; much in the same way that she roamed freely when she lived on the streets.

/

She thought she heard a car outside so Kira peeked out of the window only to sigh in relief when she saw that the driveway was still dark outside. Hurrying, she knew that she had to scan through the room quickly to find anything that could be sold later on for food or clothes. Elsewhere, other street kids were ransacking the house while doing the same thing as Kira. Each child would keep whatever they found in their chosen rooms. Kira had decided on the den for her room to look for hidden treasures. In her experience, these rich folks liked to hide the good stuff in their _Sanctuaries_ away from the rest of their own families. It never ceased to amaze Kira just how much people didn't even trust those with whom they shared their lives. By now, she was good at spotting hidden alcoves and false backs to drawers and even when a room seemed smaller than it should have been. Finding the secret rooms with stashed jewels always gave Kira a big rush. She knew that she'd be eating well for at least a month if she could find one again.

She never took everything, only what she knew she needed to buy food for a time. Her conscious wouldn't let her clean out everything that she found. Her conscious even had a name; her imaginary friend from when she was younger, Bo. It seemed so strange that even at her age that she could still talk to him as easily as she could way back when she was four. Of course, Bo was the only friend that she had that she never had to leave behind; either on the streets or in an orphanage. As a result, maybe she had grown too dependant on him. She didn't need other friends, even if he wasn't real, he was always there. Kira was also able to imagine herself in a nice home with family that really cared for her through Bo. After all, the only family she'd ever had abandoned her in the hospital's waiting room nearly a decade prior. If she could have changed things, she wished that she could have been sent to a family like Bo's rather than Selma's or any of the others that she had gone to over the years.

Kira quickly went back to the desk and felt around for the back of the drawer and fiddled with it until it folded down to reveal the hidden compartment. Running her hand along false back, Kira pulled out the prize for her trouble. It wasn't jewels this time; instead it was a small pistol, complete with an ankle holster. Kira had never held a gun before but she did know that many of the other street children did have their own. Some were hidden in their modest belongings. Others kept them hidden on themselves while going about their day to day lives. Kira wasn't sure if she planned to keep it but she did know that if she decided to get rid of the pistol it would be worth more than she could swipe from wallets for sure.

Stashing the weapon into her backpack, Kira grabbed the small amount of cash that had been kept in the drawer as well before she ducked out of the house before the owners could return home. She had enough cash to keep her fed for several days now without having to resort to other survival crimes in order to eat. Just because she was well adept at what she had learned that she had to do didn't mean that she had to like it. Each time she went with the others to break into a house or helped with picking pockets, Kira felt incredibly guilty at times. The only thing that made her feel better was that Kira did her best to target those that clearly could afford that added hassle of having to replace their stolen belongings.

Kira knew that the others would stay behind and try to gather any and all items that they could that they knew would bring a price. For her part, Kira didn't want to push her luck. She chose to leave behind any additional trinkets that would likely be worth a pretty penny on the streets since she felt she had enough for the moment. Kira wanted to get out before the owners returned home.

/

Stepping through the debris in a nearly burned out house; Kira tried her best to avoid the more brittle floorboards as she headed toward her customary spot near the back of the hollowed-out, abandoned house. She had tucked the cash that she'd found in the drawer into her boots but she was lost about what she should do about the pistol. It was too large to really hide in her clothes but the more that she thought about it, the more that Kira liked the idea of keeping the gun. Already, Kira kept a small knife in her pocket for protection. Something that she'd started doing shortly after she'd ran away once more from her last foster care home.

One of the older kids, a teenaged boy, had the habit of teasing and watching the girls in a way that had made Kira feel very uncomfortable. He always would watch the girls just a bit closer than the other boys and his icy smile reminded Kira of Ken. When he had looked at Kira or the other young teenaged girls, it never seemed like he was seeing them. He also would grope the girls whenever the foster parents were not around.

One night, the adults were out for the night; a couple's date night of sorts. Kira had been up in her room with her books studying when the boy, whose name she had refused to remember, came in and had tried to convince her to make out with him. When Kira had refused he had pushed her back onto the bed and it had only been the fact that she had been able to reach the lamp on the side table that had allowed her to both keep her pants on and get the boy off of her. After crashing the lamp over the boy, Kira had grabbed her beloved books and had run out of house and hadn't looked back.

In the time since returning to the streets, Kira noticed that she attracted more attention from some of the men who drove their cars up and down the streets where the other teenaged girls worked. Once, one man had attempted to pull her into his car and it had only been by using the knife to slash at the man that had been her saving grace. Kira was well aware of the fact that as long as she stayed on the streets, she would be considered an easy target for those who were like that man. Now Kira was never without her knife handy but she could only use it once she was already within arms' reach of a person who wanted to harm her. A gun, however, could be used to keep others further away from her. She chose when she would allow others closer to her and with the gun, she could back up her desire to be left alone.

/

Kira rubbed her shoulder as she tried to soothe the pain away from the night's fight. Tonight, she had joined in with the street fights again since she figured that it was more honest to earn her money through her own bruises rather than breaking into another home or business. After the last house, Kira had been keeping a low profile just like the others in her group. Well, those children that was still out on the streets at least.

Less than five minutes after Kira had left out with the cash and gun that she had found in the desk the cops had arrived and had taken away all of the young thieves who were still ransacking the home. A neighbor had noticed a light on upstairs and had called the authorities. Kira had not seen any of the other kids that had been there that night since then. Likely enough, they had either been sent to juvenile hall or foster care; depending on what was on each of the children's records up to that point.

Sore, bruised and battered from the fight that had not resulted in any extra cash to keep on hand since she lost, Kira walked toward the bus station where she'd planned to sleep for the night. The morning after the other kids had been taken off the police had arrived at the old burned out building that had served as a home for the street children in their small little group. That meant that someone must have said more than they should have once they had been taken in. Seeing that the house was no longer safe to stay at, Kira had begun to make her rounds to various other places that were considered to be safe locations to spend the cool winter nights.

She was only three blocks away from the bus station when a young man (perhaps only eighteen or nineteen) that looked as if he'd spent his whole life on the streets came just a bit closer than Kira was comfortable with. She didn't know him but she'd seen him around some of the street fights and knew that he'd fight some of the other young adults. He was far more aggressive than some of the others that fought. Most fought just as a means to eat. He fought with the intent to cause as much damage as he could. Kira was aware of the fact that the young man that had fought her shadow in the last fight had been found dead the next morning after the fight. He had apparently suffered internal injuries that no one knew about. It wasn't the first time that Kira had heard of one of the fighters dying but it still caught her each time that she heard about one.

Kira had never seen the man anywhere other than the fights so she was surprised to see him now. Out of habit, Kira stopped rubbing the soreness out of her shoulder and tried to appear stronger than she felt at the moment. She knew that showing any weakness could cost her dearly, both in the ring and out of it while living out in the streets. Straightening her pack on her back, Kira did her best to look as confident as she could as she made her turn down the alley that would lead her toward the bus station. When he followed her, Kira felt an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. Knowing from experience that she should always be prepared for just such an occasion, Kira had taken her old rusty blade that she'd found in the dumpster over a year ago out of her backpack just as she left the fight and slipped it into her pocket. The gun that only had two of the six bullets that it had in it when she first took it was still in the top of her bag. She knew that there was no way of pulling it out though without it being obvious that she'd noticed her sudden shadow.

Kira strained her ears and listened as the footsteps behind her echoed behind her in the alleyway. As she neared the center of the alley, the footsteps fell faster and closer to her; telling her that her shadow had decided to rush her. Kira pulled her pocket knife that no longer folded over on itself and turned just as the man reached out to grab her. The blade caught him in the forearm and left a bloody streak in his skin. He roared in anger before striking out and sent the weapon out of Kira's hold; the blade ended up lost in the dimness of the alley among the trash that littered the street.

Before Kira could react, she found herself thrown backwards onto the ground. The next few minutes were filled with struggling to get back to her feet while hoping to slip her backpack off so that she could pull out her only other weapon in an attempt to protect herself. Kira bit, punched, kicked, head butted, twisted and squirmed in an effort to get away. When her knee finally connected with the young man's groin, she was able to roll away from him and pull out her pistol and held it up while breathing hard.

Kira had fired the weapon four prior times; each only to warn off other attackers. When she had done so, she learned that the gun was powerful. So powerful in fact that it would send her aim off greatly as the barrel would tip upwards after being fired. Now crouched on the ground and watching the man stand back up, Kira didn't think that a warning shot would scare him away. When he took a step forward, Kira squeezed the trigger and swallowed hard when the shot missed her target horribly. She heard a touch of laughter in the growl that the man emitted as he lunged forward as she squeezed the trigger for what she knew would be the last time since she didn't have any more bullets left. This time, Kira aimed a lot lower and the bullet lodged itself in the man's thigh.

As Kira heard the scream of pain, she grabbed her bag and ran for the end of the alleyway. When she reached the bus station, Kira looked around and saw that a bus was about to pull out from the station. The luggage compartment was still open under the bus while the driver was seeing to the passengers so Kira rushed over and did her best to crawl in behind the suitcases of the paying passengers. Kira knew that her hit hadn't been life threatening; in fact it only grazed her attacker's thigh but it had been enough to let her get away. He had known where she was heading so she did not doubt that he'd come to the station to look for her. She needed an escape and she needed it fast. She could survive just as easily in another city as she could in this one. That was one good thing about not having any close friends. There was nothing to keep her here.

Just as the driver closed the luggage compartment, Kira saw the man that she'd shot limping into the bus yard. Kira was glad that no one could possibly see her behind the bags of the passengers of the bus. She then settled onto the hard metal flooring of the luggage compartment and wondered just where the bus would take her.

After a night where she had felt more scared than she could remember, Kira felt the need to have some sort of contact with another. Like always, there was only one person that she could turn to when she felt alone.

_'Bo-Bear, are you still awake?'_

After several moments, Kira heard a sleepy voice in her head which always made her laugh. She must really have an active imagination to imagine that she'd woken up Bo rather than have him ready to talk anytime that she needed him to listen.

_'I am now. What's wrong?'_

_'I just needed to talk to someone. I… I had to run after I had to use my gun.'_

There was a pause before she heard, _'Are you okay?'_

_'Fine, just fine. But I had to jump on a bus to get away from him.'_

_'So he's still alive?' _

Kira wasn't sure if she heard a sigh of relief in Bo's voice or not. At first, Kira had thought that she'd done more than just graze the man. Still, even if she had done more damage than just glancing a bullet off of his thigh, it had been her or him and she wasn't about to take just anything from anyone.

_'Yes, Bo-Bear, he's still alive. Though he will need to see a doctor soon.' _Kira couldn't help the sound of pride that she knew went across but she had actually hit her target, despite not having the opportunity to practice. Sure she knew that it was just a lucky shot but she'll take it anyway.

_'Good. So, where are you heading now? You know that you could always come to Hazzard.'_

_'I don't know, though I doubt it's goin' to be Hazzard. I just hopped onto a bus real quick.'_

_'Maybe you should think about coming here. I'm sure my Uncle Jesse wouldn't mind. And Daisy, she'd-'_

_'Bo,' _Kira couldn't figure out why she would do this to herself. Make it seem as if there was a place that she could go to be safe and loved when she knew that this HAZZARD couldn't possibly exist. It was just a figment of her imagination; just like Bo. And even if she did find a town that fit its description it would crush her to learn that Bo Duke didn't exist. _'We've been over this before. I couldn't ask your family to take in a nobody, a street urchin.'_

_'I still don't think that they'd mind,' _came Bo's answer in a huff. He then told Kira that he had just come back from visiting his cousin in Placid County. He'd just celebrated his fifteenth birthday earlier in the year which meant that Bo's was next. He, like Kira, would turn fifteen in April.

Bo discussed his plans to start working on an engine for a race car with his oldest cousin, Luke, but he knew that it would take him a while to earn the money that he'd need to really get started on it. Bo was the youngest of his cousins and Kira knew that he couldn't wait to turn sixteen so he wouldn't have to depend on the others to drive him around. Only he and Jebb were without a driver's license and to hear Bo tell it that pretty much marked them as having some sort of debilitating disease.

Kira listened to Bo rattle on about his future plans for racing and about how he couldn't wait until he was allowed to help run bootleg whiskey along with his uncle and older cousins. Eventually, Kira heard Bo's voice mimic the exhaustion that she herself felt. The movement of the bus was beginning to put her to sleep and she could barely pay attention to Bo any longer. She slowly began to drift off to sleep, glad that she still had Bo there for her when she needed him. She just wondered when the time would come when she would call out for him but receive no reply in return.


	6. Unwell

Rummaging through the garbage cans behind a Chinese restaurant, fifteen year old Kira Duchess began to try to find something that was still edible before the rest of the older kids showed up to pick through the left-overs that had been left by the adults that had already sorted through the trash earlier in the night. Out on the street, there was a hierarchy to abide by when it came to dumpster diving. The more fit you were the better food you got; the younger you were the less likely it was for you to eat something that wouldn't make you sick. More likely than not, though, if you were a young child that didn't have anyone to fend for you, you would go hungry. It had taken her a long time to get to the point where she could get some of the more choice pieces of garbage.

This restaurant was Kira's favorite one to come to on Friday nights. Tomorrow will be an Italian joint a few blocks away and Sunday would be a Japanese restaurant. That was how Kira kept track of the days, by the garbage that she picked through. That and where she slept. If it wasn't for that, she would have long ago lost track of what day it was.

Tonight she would go to the Carnegie Library here in Atlanta to sleep. She'd blend in with some of the students that were studying and find a good place to hide before they close for the night. At least it would be warm there. Thanksgiving was just around the corner and it was already getting quite cold at night. For Kira, though, it felt right chilly during the day lately as well.

Taking her cold meal of the day, Kira wrapped it up in a piece of paper and hid the food under her shirt and made sure it was tucked in so that the other kids her own age wouldn't know that she'd found her supper already. She didn't feel up to fighting for her dinner tonight. She usually won but recently she hadn't felt like herself. She was always tired and at times just lifting the dumpsters' lids seemed to be hard work lately.

No, she just wanted to get to the library, maybe find a couple of books to read through during the night, and sleep in her cubby that she had found months ago while scouting out the area when she was looking for places to sleep when it first started to get cool at night. Kira had found a panel in the ceiling in the ladies' bathroom that was loose and if she climbed onto the back of a toilet she could just barely pull herself up. Each week it was getting harder and harder to get into her hiding place. She might have to start looking for a new hide-out.

Kira pulled her backpack that she'd gotten out of the trash back at the end of the school year last summer up higher on her shoulder and started her long walk toward the library. It was starting to get dark and it would close soon and if she wanted to get to the building made of sandstone before it was locked up she needed to hurry. Otherwise she might have to go with her standby plan for Friday nights. Hospitals were great places to stay warm on weekends, too, since the waiting rooms were always full. But Kira knew better than to go to the same one too often; otherwise the guards would get suspicious.

When Kira finally got up to the library she briefly wondered if the rumors of tearing the old building down to make way for a newer library had any merit to them. If they ever did demolish the library that had stood since the turn of the century Kira hoped that it would be done in the summer time. She'd hate to lose her favorite place to bed down. She'd not only had a warm place to sleep at the library but she was also able to borrow books to read to help break up the day. She would also read through them when she couldn't sleep at night.

Kira loved to read. She found a rare enjoyment in going through the same books that she liked to imagine she'd be reading if she was able to go to school. Well, to go there more than to just sort through the lost and found bins; claiming that she was looking for her _'Lost'_ sweater or some other article of clothing that she might needed at the time. Of course going to the local gyms were a good place to look for clothes as well. It seemed that they always had a pile of unclaimed clothes in their back offices.

One type of place that Kira did her best to avoid was the shelters. They were a last resort for sure. Yes she'd find some warm clothes, a nice meal, and a cot for the night but it was nearly a certainty that by the morning someone from the Division of Family and Children Services would be there to take her back to the group homes for her to stay while being processed and shipped back off to yet one more foster family.

Kira had lived through enough of those foster families to know that she didn't want to go back. If it wasn't _Mama Selma_ it was the various _Uncles_ that tried one too many times to get more than just a bit friendly at night. Kira would take her chances out on the street for as long as she could before she let herself go back.

After Kira went into the library, she mulled through biography section as she waited for a chance to head off into the ladies' restroom unnoticed so that she could find her hide-out for the night. When Kira finally slipped into the stall with the loose ceiling tile, she stood up on the back of toilet and did her best to lift her backpack up over her head to shove it up into the hidden cubby but she just couldn't hold it steady enough to toss it up. Giving up on the bag, Kira then tried fruitlessly to haul herself up instead but soon gave up on that as well. She just didn't have the strength to get up into the ceiling any longer. Instead, Kira put her backpack on the back of the door and pulled her feet up onto the seat when the librarian came in to look for any stragglers before closing the library down for the night.

Once the library was all dark and quiet, Kira snuck out of the bathroom and headed to one of the couches that littered the sitting area. She then pulled out the ratty old blanket that she'd found in a dumpster several weeks ago. The thin material wasn't much but it was better than nothing. Still, Kira hoped that it would hold off the incessant chill that she seemed to live with lately. She couldn't understand how she could have both the chills and night sweats when she tried to sleep; but sweat she did. In the mornings she would awaken to damp clothes which would cause her to pull out her one extra pair of pants and shirt before heading out to the cold air of Georgia's winter. Kira would then spend an exhausted day on the street until it was time for her find lodging for the night.

Curled up on the uncomfortable couch, Kira pulled out her meager supper and began to nibble on the food that she'd brought with her to the library from the Chinese restaurant. She knew that she should have been starved but she really didn't have much of an appetite. Rather than feeling famished, she felt oddly full most of the time. It was something that she'd learned to appreciate since she was not always able to find something edible in the dumpsters. When she did, she was not guaranteed to being the one to actually eat the morsels, neither. Thus not feeling the hunger pains on those days had become a God-send. Still, on the days that she did have something to eat she would push herself to finish everything that she had. It would have to carry her to her next meal, whenever that would be.

After she ate, Kira leaned back to try to get some sleep in one of the few places the offered warmth on a cold night in the city for one without a home. A few times throughout the night she was awaken by coughing fits that had become her constant companions as of late. She suspected that she might be getting the flu since it was already that season again. She wondered if there was anything worse than being sick while living on the streets where no one wanted to know your name. She then decided that there was. Being sick on the streets were preferable to going back to the homes that she'd been placed in before she'd been able to escape to her life on the road.

With that in mind, she reminded herself that she would need to get up before the library opened so that she could hide back out in the bathroom until other patrons began to filter in for the day. Of course, with the way she was feeling, she just might decide to hang out among the shelves of books instead of leaving. As the night grew on, an unexplainable weakness began to take over her body and she doubted that she'd be able to keep on the move during the daylight hours. She'll just have to plan to stay in the library instead.

/

After daybreak, the head librarian made her way to work to see to it that the library was ready to open for the day. Her staff would be in shortly but she had always made it a point to arrive early so that she could see how her night staff had left the building before the others returned to work. Then she would mark down everything that she found and would address it at the next staff meeting. And she would bring up every single thing that she found, too. Whether it be trash in the study cubbies or chairs that hadn't been stacked before the carpets were vacuumed. It was her responsibility to see to it that the library was run professionally and efficiently and that was precisely how she would do things.

The librarian made her way toward one of the sitting areas after checking the cubbies and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw that there was an individual sleeping on one of the couches. This wasn't the first time that she'd found a homeless person that had stowed away overnight in the library but this was the first time that she'd found one so young. Filing away the need to reinforce the procedures for shutting the library down with her staff to ensure that this wouldn't happen again, the librarian straightened her shoulders and went over to wake the sleeping girl.

Using a pencil to poke the girl's dirty clothes, the woman sighed when the girl didn't stir. She supposed that it would be better to call the authorities about the girl anyway before she woke up. A girl this young was bound to be a runaway and the Division of Family and Children Services really should be called in to take the child in off the street. She then headed over to the front desk to start making calls.

Nearly an hour later, Kira slowly began to wake up with a headache. As she blinked in the surprisingly bright room, the images of several adults, two of which was a police officers and another was her case worker that she'd had for over a year, came into view. Panicking, Kira sat up quickly but knew that she didn't have a chance to leave on her own now.

/

Kira made a face as she rolled her sleeve down after the nurse drew her blood. She then opened her mouth for the nurse to take a cheek swab as well before waiting for the last of the examination to be over. She knew the routine well by now. Since she was showing signs of coming down with a cold (possibly the flu) she would likely be kept isolated at the orphanage until the people that ran it knew that she wasn't contagious or anything before the process of trying to find a new foster home for her once again.

In the corner of the room, Kira's social worker was standing with her ever present clipboard in hand and was ready to escort the frequent escape artist out of the hospital and to the state ran facility that held those children that were still waiting for a place to call home; even a temporary one. Sandra O'Connell glanced through her file and tried to estimate just how long it would take for the young girl on the exam table to bolt and run back to the streets where she was more comfortable.

She'd seen her kind often enough to know when a child was too damaged to be able to fully adjust to family life. If she had to wager a guess, the girl would likely be dead before she reaches her eighteenth birthday. Many street kids fell into the trap of using drugs or alcohol to ease the burdens of their lives and for those that didn't, the hazards of living on the streets usually took far more lives each year than the number of kids Georgia placed in permanent homes through adoption each year. The young teenager, in Sandra's opinion, seemed dead set on joining the numbers of the former rather than the later.

"Alright, young lady, that's all I need," the nurse said as she wrote her patient's number on the vials of blood and on the swab's packaging to make sure they were ready to head off to the lab. She turned to the social worker and added, "The doctor will speak with you outside."

The worker eyed the nurse but headed out into the hall where the doctor was waiting for her already. "So is she ready to leave yet?"

"Ms. O'Connell, I'd like to keep the girl for some more tests. She has a mild fever and her oxygen count is down. In addition, several of her lymph nodes are swollen, too. While doing an abdominal exam, I found that her spleen seemed abnormally large for her age as well."

"So you think that she is coming down with the flu then?"

"These aren't the symptoms of the flu. Like I said, I'd like to run more tests to be sure of what is going on. Added to the fact that she seems unwell in general, I'm concerned about all of the unhealed wounds and abrasions. Did you see just how much of her body is covered with bruises?" The doctor clenched his jaw as he saw the doubt in the woman's eyes so he settled on one last argument. "Just until the blood comes back. I know that the orphanage is full this time of year anyway. This will leave one more bed open for some other kid that is rescued from the streets."

Sandra considered the doctor's reasoning. He was right. The cooler months were harder to find adequate bedding for all of the kids that inevitably would find their way off of the streets, either of their own doing or not, so finding space was already getting difficult in the overcrowded shelters and orphanages. She could use the extra day or two to set up lodging for the girl. After all of the times that Kira had ran away from homes near the big cities, Sandra wondered if finding an orphanage in one of the smaller, back woods towns would be more affective in keeping the girl where ever she was placed. There was one such orphanage in a small town called Hazzard that seemed to have a good track record with wayward children. She would see if she could get the girl transferred to that one once she was released from the hospital.

"Alright, I'll talk to my bosses and tell them that she's being held here at the hospital for now. Though I find that cough of hers to be a little dramatic. I think she's just playing it up a bit."

"Maybe so but I'd rather be sure about it before I release her into your care."


	7. Scared and Afraid to Show it

After getting off of the phone with the orphanage down to the southwest of Atlanta in the backwoods county where she had just made arrangements for her latest problem to be transferred to, Sandra headed back to the hospital to speak with the doctor treating the child that had been brought in off of the street the day before. While she considered the overnight stay in the hospital to have been needless, it had given her a little extra time to find a suitable placement for the State's frequent temporary ward. Now it was time to collect her and make the long drive to the small orphanage.

Upon arriving at the hospital, Sandra was given a message that the doctor who treated the street child the day before wanted to speak with her as soon as she got to the hospital. Sandra figured that the kid hadn't been faking after all, she really did have the flu despite the fact that the kid's behavior seemed exaggerated to her.

Mrs. O'Connell was taken to a conference room and waited for Dr. Wilkens impatiently since she had a long drive ahead of her unless he could give her a very good reason to not take her down to the orphanage just yet. It wasn't like the flu was a debilitating disease. What she wasn't prepared for was what doctor came in to tell her.

"More tests?" Sandra inhaled as she asked the doctor to explain. "Why?"

"I told you yesterday that I was concerned over Kira's swollen spleen, not to mention the excessive bruising and enlarged lymph nodes. Add that to the low oxygen count and then the results of the blood work that's come back so far… Let's just say I'm worried."

"But you think that you know what is wrong with her, though, don't you. You said that it didn't sound like the flu yesterday and now today… What's your diagnosis if it isn't the everyday, run in the mill flu?"

Dr. Wilkens usually waited until he had all of the test results back before speaking his mind but in this case he figured he could make an exception. Normally he didn't want to panic the parents of the children before he absolutely had to. His current patient, however, had no parents to worry.

"If I'm right, I'm afraid that Ms. Duchess has a rare form of cancer. I'm going to need your permission to run the extra tests though to be sure."

/

Kira listened as she listened to the doctor try to explain why she wasn't being released from the hospital as she had expected. By the way the doctor was telling it, he planned to drill HOLES in her hipbone to run MORE tests on her. That meant surgery and more time in the hospital. Of course she couldn't refuse the tests since her social worker had already approved them.

Hearing the doctor's vague explanation of her lack of being discharged, Kira began to grow very scared. Just what did the doctor think was wrong with her to make him run test that a blood sample couldn't be used? Of course a nurse had come in to take more of that from her as well. After the blood was drawn, Kira was then left in the hospital room utterly alone to wonder just how the flu that she thought she was coming down with had turned into some mysterious disease that required more tests on her blood.

No one returned to the room until a worker brought her a lunch of the typical hospital food that didn't look all that appetizing to her. There was a gelatinous blob that was supposed to be meat apparently with overcooked vegetables as well as a small bowl of pudding. Knowing that she wouldn't be given anything else to eat until the next day after a surgical procedure that would run some sort of tests on her hipbone, (along with other tests that she needed to be asleep during) Kira did her best to choke back at least part of her dinner. Despite the fact that the texture rivaled some of the meals that she'd dug out of the dumpsters back during the hottest parts of the summer.

Once she'd had her fill of the unappetizing meal, Kira noticed a lot of activity out in the hall and soon realized that it must be time for the shift change for the nurses. That meant that she had a few moments to herself without having to worry about anyone coming in to check on her. Getting up from the hospital bed (glad that she hadn't been given an IV yet), Kira grabbed the extra chair that was in her room and took it into the shower room with her. Setting the chair up against the door knob to ensure that no one would be able to open the door, Kira removed the hospital gown that she'd been given and jumped into the shower for a moment. She used the miniscule bar that had been put inside to wash her crudely cut hair and then set about determining which marks on her skin were from the numerous bruises that she had and which ones were from the streaks of dirt that had become almost like a second skin for her a long time ago.

Before the dirt was all washed away, her skin had begun to prune up and her small allotment of soap had long ago disappeared into nothingness. Kira was just about to give up for the day when she heard a knock on the bathroom door just as the knob was jiggled. Kira jumped at the sound and quickly turned off the water while her heart pounded away. She knew that it was just a nurse coming to check on her finally but that knowledge didn't keep her from nearly jumping out of her skin.

"Are you alright in there? You've been in there quite a while," the nurse on the other side of the door hollered.

"Fine," Kira finally said as she reached for the towel that was resting on the sink. "I'll be right out."

"Take your time. I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

Kira swallowed hard and dried off before putting the hospital gown back on. After glancing in the mirror and seeing her scared reflection, she did her best to put the look of someone who couldn't care less what others thought of her or what they wanted to do back on her face. If she had learned anything while living on the street, it was that she had to look tougher than she felt at any given time. She couldn't show just how scared she was at the fact that she wasn't being shipped off to yet another orphanage. She couldn't show that the sight of the needles that the nurses brought in with them made her want to run and hide under a sewer cover. She couldn't show that the presence of so many strangers coming in to care for her made her want to cringe each time one of them reached forward to touch her.

No, she had to be as hard as iron to anyone who approached her. She couldn't show that she felt as fragile as a broken egg shell.

/

Kira laid awake, pretending to be asleep when the nurse came in to check on her after her surgery. Her side hurt a lot where they had gone in and drilled a hole in her bone; so bad, in fact, she had reluctantly told a nurse so she could give her something for the pain earlier. Now, she still hurt but not nearly as badly as she had before. Not enough to ask one of the women to bring her another shot, at least, but she didn't see herself being able to drift off to sleep anytime soon.

After the nurse had left, Kira was faced with another night alone in her hospital room with absolutely nothing to do. Normally, when she couldn't sleep, she'd pull out a book that she'd taken from the library to read until she was able to drift off. Not tonight. Tonight she had no books to flip through and the only magazines that she'd seen when she was taken into the common room that had been set up for the adolescence in the hospital had been teen magazines that gave advice to girls her age on how to attract boys or how to apply their make-up right. Basically, not the kind of magazines that interested her.

On the street, the last thing that she'd wanted to do was to attract the attention of anybody to her body. Instead, she did her best to hide the fact that she was a girl at all through the use of extra layers of clothing and even in the manner that she walked down the street. Kira had not desire to draw any of the usual trouble that a girl living on the street could face. As bad as it was for boys her age to be homeless, it was much worse for girls. Girls were more likely to be assaulted on the street than boys.

On the streets, every day was a fight to survive and but the nights were even worse. That had been one reason that she'd decided to leave the other street teens behind. It was hard to figure out who were your friends that you could depend on and who would betray you for an extra bite to eat or a warm blanket on a cold night. It was much easier to just assume that she couldn't trust anyone. That way she wouldn't run the risk of trusting the wrong person only to end up regretting it.

Lying in bed, she heard when another person walked into her room but the individual didn't come to the bed like the nurses had in the past when they had come in to check on her. Curious and worried about her late night visitor, Kira cracked her eyes open only to discover that the person was the cleaning lady doing her best to mop the room without disturbing her. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, much younger than most of the women that Kira'd seen working at the hospital.

When the woman got closer to the bed, she noticed that Kira was awake and apologized for waking her up.

"I wasn't asleep. I slept all day it feels like. I'm just bored since I have nothing to do," Kira confessed as she sat up in the bed, wincing as she rolled onto her back.

"I could see about getting you a book to read from the library downstairs," offered the lady as she continued to mop around the bed.

Kira shook her head. "I've read all of the ones they have here already. That or they are for little kids anyway."

"What kinds of books do you usually like to read?"

Kira had just finished reading **Celt, Druid and Culdee** by Isabella Elder and had considered reading something a bit different next, perhaps a book about the Sumerians. She loved history and did her best to learn as much of it as she could. Still, she knew from experience that if she shared her love of that history she would get odd looks from others. The thing was, now that she no longer had access to the library of Atlanta, how will she be able to continue to read about the long since gone civilizations?

"History, mainly," Kira said with a shrug. "There's enough of it that it never gets boring."

"Never gets boring?" The woman whispered while swooping the mop under the bed. "I think when I was your age, the only thing I did in history class was fall asleep. In fact, I still have a hard time staying awake when the professor is going over all of those dates."

"Then ignore the dates." Kira was matter-of-fact like as she pulled her blanket up higher since the hospital room always felt too cool to her.

"I wish I could, but teachers have an annoying habit of putting things like that on tests." The housekeeper finished her tasks before heading toward the door. "Anyway, you should try to get back to sleep. See you tomorrow night."

Kira watched as she left and wondered what she was going to do now that she was once more left alone. Talking with the housekeeper had passed some time but she wasn't about to try that with the nurses. Every time one of them came into her room, it usually had something to do a shot, needle, medication, checking her vitals or taking her for some medical procedure or another that was bound to leave her in pain and exhausted. No thanks; she'll pass on calling them into her room more than absolutely necessary.

/

Looking out her room Kira watched as the doctors and nurses that had ended up having to work on Christmas tried to brighten the day of their patients. To a young Kira, she really didn't see what was so special about it. At least this year she wouldn't go hungry. Some of her previous foster parents had drunk away the holiday. They had been the better ones. Now here she was at sixteen and was too old to believe magic or miracles.

It had been almost three weeks ago now since she'd first been brought in off of the streets after being found sleeping in the library. After which, she was brought in for treatment for a rare cancer that she highly doubted that they even knew what they were talking about when they spoke about the various treatments that they intended to use on Kira. Each day she seemed to feel sicker, not better.

Her hair had started to come out too. One nurse had told her it was from the medicine. She had been angry that someone would give her something that would make her hair fall out. Of course, many of the kids in this section of the hospital had lost their hair. Looking out her door now, that a nurse had left open to encourage her to participate in the special activities of the morning, Kira watched as families came to visit the other children.

The nurses had started to pity her since she had no family to visit her. Her case worker had dozens of other children to check in with and had only been able to come twice since her arrival. She had wanted to tell them exactly where they could stick their pity and would have is she just had enough strength to do it. So instead, she sat in bed, staring out the door. Wondering what was so _Merry _about Christmas.

/

"Shawn, you know that I already have plans for the evening. The same ones I have every year." Ben Kyle, a man well into his sixties who was a self-made man, looked back at his son as he spoke.

Ben has been a successful lawyer in the state, catering to the most affluent clientele while devoting his free time to doing charity and pro-bono work to give back to the community, for most of his adult life. After all, he could still remember what it was like as a child, living from hand to mouth, watching his parents and older siblings literally kill themselves working the long and hard hours in the textile mills so that he and the others in the family had enough to eat. They had worked sixteen hour days and at times, had been too exhausted at the end of the day to see to their own needs. Ben had been one of the lucky ones. He'd been able to rise above his meager beginnings and he felt duty bound to help others do the same. His greatest disappointment had been that neither of his children had inherited that same sense of duty to help their fellow man. Instead, despite the fact that they were both in their thirties, his son and daughter were overgrown spoiled brats.

"You know that you don't HAVE to go, Dad. Someone else can go in that ridiculous costume and make a fool of themselves. Elizabeth and Dave have been planning this for weeks." Shawn barely hid the disgust that he felt at the sight of his father, a well respected attorney for decades, sporting the same beard that he would grow every year in the weeks leading up to Christmas. By the evening the embarrassment will be complete when the old man put on that red suit of his that he insisted on not only keeping but wearing every year.

"And she should have known better than to plan it on Christmas Eve. The two of you have grown up knowing that this was a yearly tradition that I've not missed in over thirty years. This year won't be the first. If there is time afterwards, I'll come by towards the end of the party but I won't make any promises." Ben put his pen down and stared at his son in a challenging manner. He didn't intend to disappoint those who were counting on him simply because his kids wanted to show off for their friends (or in many cases those who his kids WISHED were their friends). No, he always kept his word, especially to those out at the Atlanta Hospital.

Shawn clenched his teeth as he prepared to make his case once more on just why his father was needed to make sure that he was at Elizabeth's party and on time. The individuals that were coming could very well make or break Dave's chances in gaining a Senate seat. As much as Shawn hated it, his father's show of support wasn't only something that would help pave the way, without it, Dave didn't have a prayer with some of those supporters.


	8. A Visit from Santa

**Sorry for the delay in the update. Life has been busy and I'm also working on a Screenplay so balancing everything is a bit tricky. The Screenplay will likely take precedence since it sprung from a conversation with none other than John Schneider. He's already read the three page summary and loved the concept and told me how to get the format right before getting it ready for submission. That completely made my day. Even if it never goes any further, I have at least put forth the effort to get the idea out there to someone like John. There are so many who never even try. And to try and get a positive response was truly a remarkable experience. **

**I do hope to translate the format back into the novel format once I'm done since I'm more comfortable with it and I'll post it up on Fictionpress under the name, "Death Did Us Part". Look for it later.**

/

As Ben Kyle was going down the hallway of the hospital, he couldn't help but be disgusted as he thought on the scene with his kids that morning. Every year since his kids were little they knew that he and his partner Tom Callahan and his wife Michelle visited the kids in the hospital on Christmas Day. It was something that had never even been an issue. It was just a fact. Though for the past few years, he knew that they had begun to resent all the time he spent on _"the charity cases"_ at the hospital. He had volunteered in various ways over the years. For which he knew that his ungrateful children had begun to refer to him as an _"old fool"_. They believed that he was getting soft in his old age.

Maybe he had given them too much when they were growing up. Made it where they didn't appreciate what they had or just how fortunate they were. Now they still acted as if they were in their early twenties with the parties they constantly threw and attended instead of each pushing forty. His son-in-law and daughter-in-law were just as bad as his own kids when it came to being spoiled by the money he had acquired over his lifetime. He had already given up on ever having the grandchildren that he had so wanted, too. Shoot, if his kids had given him them grandchildren, they'd be close to getting out of high school now. Instead, the closest thing to grandchildren it looked like he would ever get were the kids he visited here at the hospital.

Getting to the nurses' station, Ben saw Michelle's sister, Susan; the head nurse on staff in this wing. She had a few of the kids of various ages all lined up waiting on Santa to arrive to bring them their presents. They had been told that HE would be making a special trip just for them today. Looking at all the kids, his heart just about broke as they all started to happily scream as he walked into view.

"Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas!"

Behind him, Tom and Michelle helped pull the other bags of presents that he himself couldn't carry. He had practically bought out a small toy store of whatever toys that they had left on the shelf the night before to add to the toys that he had already bought to bring today. Another reason for his kids to be so upset with him this morning. They were upset at how he was wasting THEIR inheritance away. Well, he ain't dead yet. So it was still his to spend however he wanted. After all, it was he who had built up the wealth over the years, not them. If he wanted to buy out toy stores and candy shops on occasion then no one was gonna stop him.

Kira watched from her opened door as an old man in a Santa suit was surrounded by the kids in the wing, each practically screaming to the point of going hoarse. She should have known that the hospital would pay someone to visit all the kids. A part of her wished that she was still young enough to believe in Santa Claus and the hope that he seemed to bring with him as he was handing out the presents that he'd brought with him. From where she sat in her room, she was impressed that the toys that were handed out didn't seem to be the factory rejects that she had sometimes seen given out by the various charity groups that had tried to collect toys for the kids at the orphanage over the years.

Despite herself, Kira climbed out of bed and stood by her door to watch the goings ons a bit better. Everyone was having such a good time. It was as if for an hour, the kids and their parents were able to forget that they were in a hospital where the kids were in a very real fight for their lives. Standing where she was, she could almost, ALMOST, believe in miracles. After all, everyone else in the wing seemed to believe it, if just for a while. But she then reminded herself that her life itself was enough to disprove such foolish thoughts. If miracles existed, she certainly wouldn't be here with no family or spent all her life in various foster homes and then bouncing back and forth on and off the streets. So instead of joining in with the Christmas fun, Kira closed her door to the smiles and laughter that were running rampant in the hall.

As Santa finished talking to the last kid who had waited eagerly for his turn, Tom and Michelle had handed out most of the various toys to the children along with the many types of candy that had been brought for the kids. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a sad teenager with thinning red hair who had been watching the morning activities from her room, close her door. He had seen a stark contrast in her room from the other children's rooms. Their rooms had flowers, balloons, toys, and other personal touches to make their rooms feel like less of a hospital room. He had seen none of that in the teen's room. Making his way over to Susan, he asked about the girl.

"She's the saddest case I've seen in a while. Doesn't have any family to visit her. Her own social worker referred to her a _Throw-away Case_. Just came back in off the streets before she was brought in here. Hardly ever says two words to any of the nurses either when we go in there to check on her."

Ben watched Susan leave to respond to a call in another room as he thought about the teen. Heading across the hall, Ben slowly made his way to the only room with a closed door. Once at the door, he knocked and waited for permission to go in. When it didn't come, he opened the door anyway and poked his head in.

"Mind if I come in?"

"You gonna leave if I say I do?"

"Maybe."

Kira looked at the man in red for a minute before resigning herself to the intrusion. "Knock yourself out. Don't you think I'm a little old for a visit from Santa though?"

"You're never too old for a friendly visit, regardless of who that visit is from." Closing the door behind him, he walks over and extends his hand while offering his name. "I'm Ben."

Kira looks at his hand distrustfully before taking it. "Kira. Aren't you supposed to lie and say your name is Kris Kringle or something?"

"Well, you're the one who said that you're too old for Santa Claus. And since you didn't come out I figured I'd come to you. You may be too old for a doll, but you're never too old for candy. We brought all kinds. What's your favorite? I'll bet we have some for you." Kira just shrugged her shoulders. She really hadn't had many sweets, one was the same as another. "Well, I'll just bring ya in a mixed bag. How's that?"

"Fine I guess." Kira tried to go back to reading an old book that the night-time cleaning woman had left her after their night time discussion about her love of history. It was a text-book that she had used last semester. The school was using a different one this semester so it was just lying around.

"What 'cha reading?" Ben flips the book up to see the title and was surprised. "Western Civilization. Isn't a college text-book a little old for you? After all, you are what? Fourteen?"

"Fifteen, and not really. I've always liked reading about history anyways. And there ain't much else to do while stuck in here."

Ben got Kira to tell him about what she'd been reading. Currently she was reading about the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Ben was impressed by how bright she seemed to be; both in the book learning that she appeared to be keeping up with despite not having been in school on a regular basis and with her natural quick-wittiness. Even the fact that she was almost constantly sarcastic endeared her to him.

Ben spent over an hour talking to the snappish teen until it was clear that she was becoming overly tired. He left with a promise to return the next day. Kira didn't really believe she'd see the man in red again. After all, she'd heard that promise before from others who had yet to return.

/

The next morning, Kira glanced out of the door to see just where the nurses were at before she slipped her hand between the mattress and the metal frame that it sat on. The then brought a very small piece of candy that she'd hidden the night before after her visit from _Santa Claus_ out and snuck the rare treat into her mouth. She barely allowed herself to savor the taste of the chocolate before she swallowed the piece whole when she noticed that a nurse was heading in her direction. She then snatched up her book that she'd already read through twice but had little else to do at the moment anyway and opened the textbook up and began to once more read about the Achaemenid Empire, the largest empire that the ancient world had ever seen.

The nurse wished Kira a _Merry Christmas_ as checked her vitals while Kira secretly was glad that she wouldn't have to hear that phrase again for nearly a year after today. She was so sick of hearing it after her stay of nearly a whole month in the hospital. If she heard just one more person come into her room while trying to be disgustingly cheery she just might scream at the words that seemed to be on everyone's lips. Already, Kira had hoped that the fact that she almost never spoke to the medical staff would make her desire to be left alone to be made clear. Unfortunately each one still would try to engage her with asinine chatter of various teen idols that she could only assume that other girls her age would know.

Once the woman left Kira once more alone in her barren room, Kira put the book back down since she really had a hard time focusing on the history that it held. She'd gotten up much too early due to the noise out in the hall as parents made it into the hospital to spend Christmas morning with their children. After shutting her door to the cheerfulness of the goings ons that were just beyond her own room, Kira rolled over to try to get some more sleep. When she woke back up, Kira saw that a couple of books had been left on her tray. Reaching for the one on top of the stack, she read the title of the book; One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcí a Márquez. On the inside of the cover, Kira read a simple inscription.

_I thought that you would like this better than a doll. _

_Santa Claus/Ben Kyle_

Shrugging, Kira figured that she might as well as try to read the book since she really didn't have anything else to do. At first, she hadn't thought that she'd like it by the brief synopsis on the cover but from the moment she actually started to read the story she was hooked.

The first chapter was just brilliant: gypsies bring items to Macondo, a village hidden away from mass civilization by miles of swamp and mountains. The everyday items (magnets, ice, etc.) were interpreted as magic by people who have never seen them. One thing that Kira found in the reading was that it forced her to look at of much of what she formerly found ordinary and see just how amazing they could be for those who had never seen them before. Then the gypsies bring a magic carpet, a real one, one that worked and there was no distinction between the powers of the magnets and those of the magic carpet. Magical realism: the perfect blend of science and make-believe.

Kira found the fact that the same individuals that took such pain-staking measures to understand something as simple as ice or magnets using the most primitive scientific means, working day and night to discover that the earth is round - but then had just accepted that carpets could fly, fascinating. That people could instantaneously increase their body weight sevenfold by pure will and that human blood can twist and turn through streets to find a specific person. The book was one contradiction after another but had been done so in an intriguing manner. And sometimes that intriguing manner was actually a bit confusing… at least at first. Perhaps it was that confusion that forced Kira to actually finish the book. Or maybe the fact that when she was checked on once more by a nurse she commented on how incredibly boring she had found the book.

By the end of the day, she had finished the book but found that her eyes had grown too tired to read further for the day. Still on her table were three other books: **The Last Unicorn** by Peter S. Beagle which looked like another book that would feature a magical land, **Flowers for Algernon** by Daniel Keyes, and **Island of the Blue Dolphins** by Scott O'Dell. After reading the back flap of the last book, Kira figured that she'd most likely start with that one once she woke up in the morning.

In a way, she wished that she could at least thank the man in the red suit that had left the books; the first real Christmas presents she could ever remember getting from anyone. At the same time, however, Kira was afraid that the gesture wasn't quite as selfless as it seemed. Would this Ben guy show himself to really be a man who only wanted to do something nice for the ward's charity case or would he end up being like the countless people that she'd met in her life that always expected something in return for their efforts?


	9. A Promise Kept

Shawn scowled as he flipped through the newspaper and saw where some reporter had written up an article about his father's activities over the holiday. It wouldn't have made him so mad if it wasn't for the fact that his father hadn't even tried to use the event as a photo op. No, he'd done it out of the _kindness_ of his heart. Thinking about all of the money that his father had just blown on all of the snot-nosed, money-grubbing, rug-rats made his stomach turn.

Not only had his father wasted both time and money out at the hospital but he had also completely blown off the party that Shawn had planned to wine and dine the investors that he had lined up to help contribute toward his brother-in-law's bid for the Senate. Investors that had come on the promises and assurances that Ben supported his daughter's husband's bid for Office. As he and his sister had played their roles of host and hostess during the party, the disappointment of not seeing Ben Kyle with his children had been clear on the faces of many of the guests.

Already, Shawn had been trying to do damage control as the New Year approached. He had made calls to the right people, flattered until he was blue in the face, sent out cards of appreciation for their presence at his and his sister's party and made plans to join some of the most boring people that he knew for their own New Year's Eve celebration. His father's presence had once more been requested and Shawn hoped that the old fool could tear himself away from his _charity work_ long enough to at least make an appearance this time.

Folding the Society Page back up and tossing the newspaper aside, Shawn figured that he'd better call his father and make nice for the moment. After all, after the Christmas Eve party fiasco, he needed his father there for the next event.

/

Ben walked down the hall toward the Children's Cancer Wing once more, this time clean shaven since Santa wouldn't make another appearance for another year just yet. He'd come earlier in the week to drop off the books for the young girl that he'd met on Christmas Eve but she'd been asleep at the time so he had just left them behind and had let her sleep. Instead, he'd spoken with the head nurse, Susan, about the lone child in the cancer wing. The more that he heard about her the more he was intrigued.

Ben opened the door and smiled when he found the young girl inside the room reading one of the books that he'd left her after Christmas. So engrossed in the story, Kira never even looked up as he walked further into the room. Ben had made it completely into the room and had nearly sat in the single chair in the room before Kira looked up in surprise as if she didn't recognize him. Seeing as how the only time that she'd seen him had been while he'd been disguised wearing a red suit and long white beard, Ben quickly spoke up.

"I see you got my gift." The moment that Ben spoke he could see a spark of recognition in Kira's eyes. "I figured that you would like them better than some toy that you obviously are too old for."

Kira glanced down at the book that she'd already read more than halfway through. Uncertain of just how to respond to the older man she just shrugged in response. She was actually at a very interesting part of the story and she hated to have to stop now that she had a rare visitor. A true visitor, not just one of the nurses coming in to check on her or one of the other staff going about their daily lives; nor was he a social worker doing her duty by coming out to see her once every two weeks.

"I wasn't really sure what a girl your age would like to read so I tried to get a few different kinds so you'd likely like at least one of them."

"Thank you," Kira mumbled as she closed the book and put aside on the small rolling table that was at the edge of her bed. She then chewed on her lip, uncertain of just what she should do now that her visitor had returned to see her. She'd been so certain that he'd be just like anyone else in her life. Every individual that had promised to return to her had failed to follow through with such empty words. Yet here he was, back just like he'd said that he would be and this had actually been is second return visit since he'd come once before to deliver the books that she'd found on her table just a few days ago. Now the question begged to be answered, why?

"I hadn't expected for you to come back."

"I said that I would be," Ben smiled as he relaxed into the small uncomfortable chair next to the hospital bed. "I always keep my promises."

Ben looked in the teen's eyes and could see that the thought of someone actually keeping a promise, any promise, seemed like a foreign concept to her. Her life must have been filled with so many broken promises that she expected nothing else from others. Shaking his head and letting it drop, he asked Kira how she liked the book so far only to learn that this was the second of the books that she's read since he'd brought them; she'd already read one of them all of the way through in the days since he'd dropped them off. Ben hadn't expected for Kira to be quite that fast of a reader since it looked as if she would likely finish the second book later on today as well. The two discussed the plot elements of the stories as well as the characters themselves. At times their conversation had become quite animated. Kira would make connections within the story that Ben would have never of made but then he had lived a life a bit differently than Kira had and many times life experiences color the perception of how one would read a story.

As the discussion of the book began to wind down, Ben noticed that Kira's eyes were beginning to droop which signaled that it was time for their visit to end. Kira realized that Ben was about to get up and had to ask something before her visitor left.

"This is the second time that you've come to see me but neither time you asked about my folks… Does this mean that you already know I don't have any?"

"I did speak with the staff and they told me, yes."

"So you're just here out of pity."

Ben's eyes took on a stern look to them before he responded to Kira's statement. "I don't do anything out of pity, Young Lady. I do like to help those who have suffered from circumstances not of their own making in their lives, however, and help them overcome them; especially when I see potential in them to rise above such impediments."

Kira eyed Ben, uncertain of just how she should respond. She had become accustomed to others, mainly the social workers, looking at her in pity (which she hated) or out of duty but Ben… His look held neither of those things. She couldn't figure him out. There was another look that she'd long ago learned to look out for from any man that appeared to want to _help_ her, but again Ben's own countenance was devoid of that lecherous hue that would have had her recoiling from him as if he were a viper poising to strike. Could he really want to help her for no other reason than he saw a potential in her that no one else had ever seen?

Kira's mind continued to be a mass of unanswered questions as she began to succumb to lethargy that her illness always left behind. Even on days that she had no treatments, Kira remained inexplicably tired and ran down. At times she couldn't help but wonder if there was any real point to any of it. After all, remission was something that was really only a pipe dream for someone with her type of cancer.

/

Over the next few weeks, Ben became a regular visitor at the hospital. One thing that did bother him on his frequent visits was that he had yet to even see the girl's social worker out to see her charge even once. According to Susan, she had only visited the hospital once since Christmas and she hadn't even gone into Kira's room then. Instead she had simply spoken with the doctor before leaving once more. That meant that other than the hospital staff, he had been the only person that Kira had seen in weeks since she refused to spend time in the common rooms with the other children her age.

That was why Ben had left his number with a message that he wanted the social worker to call him the next time she had called in for a status report on Kira's condition. It had taken Sandra O'Connell three days to return his message and Ben had the suspicion that she had only done so out of curiosity at that. What reason did he have to want to speak with her?

Ben sat at his desk and spun his chair around to look out of his window at his flower garden that was just outside of his office as he began to fill the social worker in on his visits to her ward. He shared his concern for her since she had so little to fill her days (not even being given any school work to try to catch up on despite her absense from classes) and, in his opinion, was wasting away. She needed some stability and she wasn't getting any by just being locked away in a hospital room. She also needed a challenge presented to her, one that would feed her love of learning. Instead, she had been placed in the room and nearly forgotten about.

"Sir," Miss O'Connell started, "I have dozens of children that I have to watch after and to be honest, I'd rather put what energy I have towards them. The child has been in and out of the system so many times, its clear that she'd rather be on her own. She's only where she is now simply because she happened to be sick when she was taken off of the streets this time. If she'd been healthy, I dare say that she would have already escaped back to the streets by now."

"Miss O'Connell, I thought it was your job to do your best to keep that from happening; to give kids like her a reason to want to stay off of the streets-"

"It's my job to see to it that kids like Kira are well fed and cared for as long as they are in the system. Kids like her don't want to be a part of the system and have made a life of knowing just how far they can go and still be able to slip off into the shadows once they've taken it for everything that they can. Right now she is the least of my concerns since we both know that she isn't likely to be leaving that hospital room again. Nor will her lack of schooling likely have any real bearing on her future. Kids just don't get better from-"

"If that is the case, then why bother with any form of treatment at all?" Ben gritted his teeth as he heard the social worker rattle on. It was clear that she didn't really care for the children placed in her care. And if she didn't care about them, then what hope did any of them have at finding someone who did? "If she is as hopeless of a case as you seem to think then why not just let her leave to go back to those streets that you are so certain that she prefers? Or better yet, if she is such a bother, then I'm sure you won't mind her being taken off of your hands."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that I'll see to her treatment and care. I'm still licensed by the State from when I used to take in foster children."

"Sir, I really don't think that you understand just what you are talking about. A man of your advanced years, taking on a child as… troubled, as this girl is-"

"You let me worry about just how advanced my years are. I'll be in touch with your supervisor, then you won't even have to be concerned with just how troubled Kira is either." Ben hung the phone up with a solid thud. He stared at it while shaking his head. How did a person who obviously didn't even appear to like kids get her job?

He began to think about the kids that he once fostered, none of them had been quite as damaged as it was clear that Kira was but he was sure that he could reach her. He just might be the only person that had ever tried. Clearly her own social worker hadn't. True, he'd given up fostering children years ago due to his frantic work schedule but he no longer worked quite as much as he once had. Instead he'd begun to let Tom and as well as Shawn handle more of their clients' trials. Still, he had felt a connection with this girl and knew that she had a spark that if given the right nurturing could ignite an intense flame. And, perhaps part of it was that he felt needed. Needed by someone who didn't want to need anyone.

Ben smiled at the thought. He had promised that he'd take another book to the hospital (though at the rate that Kira seemed to read it would probably be best to just take a whole library) and discuss the latest one that had been finished with the young teen today but first he had an errand to run. One that just might change both of their lives forever.


	10. A Change of Scenery

Kira eyed the clock as she was wheeled back into her room after her latest round of tests. She hated to admit it but she'd been watching it all afternoon. In the past few weeks she had been accustomed to having her daily visitor come to see her. Today he was late. Not by much but it was noticeably so to her at least. Trying to distract herself from the fact that Ben had yet to show, Kira picked up her book from her side table and began to read through it despite the fact that she'd finished it earlier in the day. She was tired from all of the tests but she really didn't want to take a nap just yet. Instead, she forced herself to stay awake and kept eying the clock.

When her dinner tray was delivered with still no sign of Ben, Kira gave up on seeing him for the day, perhaps on any other day as well. He'd finally grown tired of her; not that she could blame him. She was nothing to him just as she was to everyone else. There was no reason to expect that he'd continue to go out of his way to see her each day. Kira knew that she should have expected this; still it took her by complete surprise now that it had finally happened. Ben was gone and wouldn't be coming back. Giving in to her exhaustion, Kira left the meal untouched and finally allowed sleep to claim her. She wasn't really hungry anyway.

Later when she woke up, Kira found that she'd slept straight through the night without waking up even once. Now that she was awake, however, she began to regret not eating her supper. Breakfast wouldn't be delivered for nearly an hour yet and she was starved. She'd gotten spoiled while staying at the hospital. The regular meals, a luxury while on the streets, had gotten her used to eating at set times. Before she had come in, one missed meal alone would have gone unnoticed.

Getting up to visit the restroom attached to her room, Kira began to wonder what had caused Ben to decide that she wasn't worth coming to see anymore. She knew that she could come off as short-tempered to most and she wasn't exactly a social butterfly, but she had thought that Ben had liked that about her. Kira was still pondering her absent visitor after her breakfast and then later after her lunch had been delivered. When she had thought that one of the staff was coming into her room to get the empty tray, Kira looked up to see her social worker. Something that she hadn't expected, especially so close to the end of business hours. Miss O'Connell had only come to the hospital to see her since her admission twice. After getting over the initial shock of seeing the woman wore off Kira noticed that she was carrying what looked like a set of clothes that were roughly her size.

"Good, you're here. I need you to try these clothes on. They should fit."

Kira looked down at the clothes as they were put down on the bed in front of her on the bed. "Am I going somewhere?" Obviously she was if she was given street clothes to wear rather than a fresh hospital gown like she had been wearing since before Thanksgiving.

"Yes. You'll be going to stay at a new foster home starting today. There is no reason for you stay here at the hospital when you only need to be here during your tests and treatments. Now get on up and get dressed. The doctor is filling out the discharge papers right now."

Kira slowly reached forward toward the jeans and sweater that had been given to her as she tried to keep her hands from shaking. Staying here at the hospital had one positive result for her in the last several weeks, she hadn't been forced to endure yet another home where she would just be considered to be a paycheck at best; she hadn't wanted to think about the worst. Now here she was being shipped off once more to an uncertain fate and this time she wasn't even in any shape to make a run for it if she had to.

Kira stood and took her clothes into the bathroom and blocked the door as best as she could just as she always did when she went in there. She then changed out of the gown and prepared for her life outside of the hospital. Once she was dressed, Kira was given a pair of shoes to wear and was escorted out to an old beat-up jalopy that reminded her of the first car that had taken her to Mama Selma's. Just the sight of the car was enough to cause a panic to begin to creep up her spine.

Before forcing herself to climb into the car, Kira glanced at the hospital; her last fortress of safety. It had been nice while it had lasted. She briefly wondered if Ben's absence from the day before had a good reason behind it and if he would show today only to learn that she was gone. He had been one of the few individuals in her life who had genuinely seemed to want to help her. Now she would never see him again.

Kira rode in the back of Miss O'Connell's car in silence as she stared out of the window as it moved through the streets of Atlanta. Kira knew many of the streets at first from her time living on them. Once they began to move further away from the downtown portion of the city, however, she quickly lost track of where they were. She had assumed that they'd be heading toward one of the more rundown sections of town so when the houses that they passed became bigger and bigger, growing more imposing as the moments went by, Kira became curious. When equally imposing gates and fences joined the houses that they passed by, her curiosity intensified.

Finally, the social worker turned her car up one of the long drives shaded by massive oak trees on either side. Kira's eyes went wide when the car came to a stop and Miss O'Connell got out of the car and walked over to open her door up as well. Kira timidly got out of the car while wondering just why the woman had driven to this house of all places. Before her stood a large brick home that had about three floors from what Kira could see with a picturesque balcony on the second floor. Walking along the woman, Kira knew that they had to be in the wrong place. No house of any of her previous foster parents could have come close to this one and the house was even bigger than the orphanages that she'd lived in before. Kira was wondering just what Miss O'Connell was thinking with bringing her here.

After knocking on the door, the two waited until a well-dressed man in a suit answered the door. "Yes?"

"I believe that we're expected. I'm Sandra O'Connell; I'm here with Kira Duchess."

"He is waiting for you in the study," the man said as he indicated for the two females to follow him. "Please follow me."

Kira and the social worker were then led through several rooms and down a hallway before finally arriving in a well-organized, richly appointed room with bookshelves lining one wall with a large mahogany desk sitting right in front of a set of bay windows. At the desk sat a man whom Kira had thought that she wouldn't see again. Upon seeing Ben Kyle, Kira's eyes bugged out in surprise.

Looking up to see his guests, Ben smiled as he set the papers that he'd been reading aside. "Come on in. I'm glad to see that you've finally made it. Please come and sit down."

Sandra shook Ben's hand before sitting down across from him while following his gaze toward Kira. The fact that she hadn't yet recovered from her shock of learning that Ben Kyle was her new foster parent seemed to amuse the old man.

"We got here as fast as we could. Traffic wasn't the best downtown."

"Believe me; I know very well just how traffic in downtown Atlanta can be on a Friday afternoon." Ben smiled as the brief thoughts of all of the countless hours of being stuck in the cluttered Atlanta traffic crossed his mind. "Well, Kira. You're being awfully quiet. I'm sure that this must be a bit of a surprise for you. I had planned to tell you yesterday but by the time the arrangements were made, it was late and you were asleep when I finally got to the hospital."

Knowledge that Ben had indeed gone to the hospital the day before, along with the realization that he was now bringing her into his home, finally seemed to sink in and took the shock away with it. Kira's eyes recovered their look of apathy before she shrugged and mumbled something that sounded like _whatever_.

"Mister Kyle, I was hoping that I could speak with you in private before I leave."

"That's not necessary," Ben glanced back toward the woman and could see that she planned to make one last appeal for him to _come to his senses _before he was left alone with the girl whom she considered to be nothing but a bother. "I believe that the only thing left to do in all of this is to go ahead and show Kira where she'll be staying now. What do you say, Kira? A tour around the place before dinner?"

Kira glanced back and forth between the two and fought a smile at the knowledge that Miss O'Connell was nearly biting her tongue with effort not to speak out of turn. What ever it was that she had wanted to say had clearly been about her and Ben was cutting the woman's opportunity to say it off. Shrugging once more, Kira agreed to the tour. She's lived in worse places than this manor so she wasn't really going to complain about the fact that she was here instead of yet another orphanage. Not to mention if she was going to be here for any length of time she was going to need a little help in finding her way around.

"Good, I'll go ahead and take you around, Kira, while James can walk Miss O'Connell back out." Ben stood and walked around the desk and shook Sandra's hand while effectively dismissing her as he said, "I hope that traffic is a bit better for you heading back to town."

Biting her lip, Sandra O'Connell accepted the hand shake before turning to follow the butler back out the way that she'd come. She still thought that it was a mistake for someone of Benjamin Kyle's advanced age to take in a girl like Kira but she supposed that he would just have to find out the hard way. Of course this time when the girl takes off and runs, there were plenty of things around for her to swipe and sell to fund her life on the streets.

Meanwhile, Ben took Kira around the primary areas of the house, starting with the library since he had the distinct feeling that the room would be of a particular interest to his new charge. He then took Kira to the Solarium before taking Kira upstairs to the second level where the family private rooms were at. He took her to the bedroom that he had decided would be hers and stood back as Kira took in the view. The first thing that he noticed was that something appeared to be quite distasteful to her.

"Is something wrong?"

"No- well…" Kira glanced around at the room's décor and did her best to not show just how much she hated the way the room looked. On the bed was a pale pink duvet with matching curtains covering the windows. Ever since Kira had left the Morgans' she had refused to wear the color pink since it had seemed that most of all of the girls' clothing was some shade of it. The color pink now always reminded her of her time spent at the Morgans'.

"If there is something that you'd like to have changed about the room feel free to say so."

"It's just… I'm not big on pink, is all."

"Is that all? That can be fixed easily." Ben smiled as he led the girl back out of the room then began to lead her down to the kitchen to introduce her to the staff there before ending the small tour in the small breakfast nook. He rarely ate in the dining room and figured that eating at the smaller table would make Kira feel more comfortable.

Over dinner, Kira finally asked one question that had been rolling around in her head since she had first been escorted into the study. "Why? Why did you have me brought here?"

Ben leaned back in his chair as he answered. "I thought that you could use a little change of scenery. Hospitals aren't exactly known for their stimulating décor." Kira eyed Ben with disbelief so he added, "Plus I'll admit that I miss having someone else besides the staff around here. My kids are grown and I haven't had any other foster children here in quite some time."

Kira looked at Ben doubtfully as she picked at her food. Not that she didn't like it, she just was rarely able to eat more than a bite or two at a time. Off to the side, she could see where there were those whom she could only assume to be other members of the staff that she had yet to be introduced to were peeking around the corner to get a look at the young teen that their boss had taken in just this afternoon. One whom he had taken to seeing on a daily basis right after Christmas and who had lost all of her hair to cancer already. It had been no secret that Mister Kyle's charitable work had been a source for many arguments between him and his children in recent weeks and each of the staff were curious as to just what their reaction would be to learning that their father had taken in one of the children from the hospital.

Kira was uncomfortable knowing that they were all watching her but did her best to ignore them. Her problem was that she could either give her attention to them or to Ben. She knew that she should feel comfortable with him given the amount of time that she'd spent with him in the hospital but being here was different. This home was his territory and she was a guest. Eventually, Kira chose Ben in favor of the men and women who were slowly being shooed away by the butler, (Was his name James?) just as Ben asked her a question.

"What was that?"

"I asked if you thought that you could handle going back to school yet or if you'd prefer to catch up on the year with a tutor instead," Ben poured himself a fresh cup of coffee as dessert was brought over to them at the table. He supposed that his decision to wait to introduce most of the employees to Kira after dinner had been a poor one since that had only bred more curiosity. He kept a rather small staff compared to others in the neighborhood but he didn't require much for himself. Mainly, they were those whom he considered to be his friends and extended family after all of the years that they'd lived and worked in a house that Ben had never believed that he'd be able to own back when he'd been Kira's age.

Kira considered the question briefly but carefully. Going to school had always been the only positive thing about being cooped up in any of her previous foster homes, however, she could reluctantly admit that there was no way that she would be able to function from sun up until the afternoon without being so exhausted that she'd need a nap. Not something that would go over well at school.

"I suppose a tutor."

"Good, I'll see what I can arrange in the morning." Ben saw that Kira had eaten very little of her dinner and hadn't even given her dessert a second look but knew from watching her eat at the hospital that she'd eaten about as much as she usually would so he didn't prod her to try to finish her meal. Instead, he put his napkin down and figured that he might as well as introduce Kira to the half a dozen men and women that were tugging at the bit to learn who the young stranger in their home was. "But for now, why don't I let you get to know the rest of the folks who live and work here."

Kira was then introduced to Gloria (the upstairs housekeeper), Chuck (the gardener), Mira (the downstairs housekeeper), Johnny (the driver who would help Chuck out on the grounds), Helen (the cook) and of course she'd already met James when she first arrived at the house. Each individual seemed pleasant enough but Kira watched them all with suspicion. By the time that the staff all announced how happy that they were that she was there at the house, along with some well-wishes in her fight against her cancer, it was getting late and Kira was exhausted. On the way to take Kira back up the stairs to the second level where the family's bedrooms were at Ben stopped off to show her a picture that he had hung on the wall across from his own room.

"This is something that I want to show you before you head off for the night." Ben turned to face the aged and faded portrait as he spoke. "Sometimes in life, we don't always get a fair shake when we start out. But that doesn't necessarily have to dictate where you'll end up later in life. You see these people in this picture?"

Kira nodded her head but remained silent and waited for Ben to continue.

"The folks in this picture were dirt poor. Worse than that, really. No wooden floors for the house, the roof leaked every time that it rained, no indoor plumbing and at times it seemed as if a stiff breeze would knock the whole house in on itself. When the Depression first hit, we were so poor that we barely even noticed it at all." Ben saw Kira's eyes raise in question after the last comment.

"Yes, we. You see that little one right there hangin' on the woman's dress? That woman was my mother and that youngen was me. There were nine of us all livin' in that house at one time and I'll tell you there were times that there was so much racket that you couldn't hear yourself think. We all banded together and most of us survived. Both of my parents and my brothers and sisters all worked in the mills there in Augusta just as soon they could. It was that or stay in school; which I'd decided to do. I'm the only one in my family that went to high school, much less college.

So why am I telling you this? Simply to tell you where I came from. Don't let the fact that you haven't had an easy start in life make you think that you can't be anything more than what you've seen others become out there on them streets. If you're willing to work hard, there isn't anything that you won't be able to accomplish. Now, I think that I ought to let you get some sleep. You've had a big day. We'll see about getting you some more clothes tomorrow and then a tutor. Good-night, Kira."

"Night." Kira turned toward the door that was a few rooms away still thinking about what Ben had just told her. Here she had thought that Ben had been a product of money, that he'd always had it. Now she had learned that he'd come from a home that had most likely had more bills than they had cash when he was younger yet now he was a successful lawyer who was living very well off. It was something to think about, for sure.

Kira opened the door to the room that she'd been given and was more than just a little surprised to find all of the pink furnishings that had been in the room earlier in the night removed and replaced. Instead her room had white coverings now rather than the horrid pink that had decorated the bedroom when she'd first arrived. Walking further into the room, Kira began to truly explore the room in a way that she hadn't when she'd been in it with Ben and was surprised that it had its own bathroom as well as a fairly large walk-in closet which she fully expected to remain empty. She had never had a room half as nice as this one before. The closet alone was bigger than most of the bedrooms that she'd shared with others while living in foster care.

Going over to the bed, Kira felt the cover and the sheets and instantly enjoyed the feel of the satin against her skin. Kicking off her shoes, Kira hopped up on the bed and pulled the covers back to crawl into the large king-sized bed. She was beyond tired and couldn't wait to see just how comfortable the bed slept. Kira tugged at a pillow to hug it to herself and thought that she would be asleep in moments. Unfortunately, that sleep didn't come. She kept finding herself staring at the door, waiting for it to open. After all, there had to be some ulterior motive for Ben to bring her here, right? People didn't just decide to take in a complete stranger without there being something in it for them.

Getting up, Kira noticed that the door had a lock on it so she turned it and climbed back into bed. Knowing that the door was locked gave her some measure of comfort and she had nearly allowed herself to drift off to sleep before the thought that a locked door wouldn't protect her if she needed it crossed her mind. This house was Ben's. Surely he'd have the key to all of the rooms. Kira then got back up and began to look around for anything that she could use to block the door with. There was a dresser, but of course in her weakened state she might as well try to push an entire mountain and get the same results. Instead, Kira's eyes landed on the soft and comfortable chair that had been placed near the window. She moved it very slowly since it was heavier than it looked then once more returned to the bed to try to drift off to sleep.

Nearly an hour later, Kira had yet to fall asleep in the luxurious bed. She couldn't explain it but Kira just couldn't let herself drift off. Every time she came close her mind would conjure up another reason that she needed to remain alert, regardless of just how tired she was.


End file.
